Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL (By Order)

Order for consideration read.

To be considered upon Monday 7th June.

METHODIST CHURCH BILL [Lords] (By Order)

Order for Second Reading read.

To be read a Second time upon Thursday 10th June.

GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (MONEY) BILL (By Order)

Order for Second Reading read.

To be read a Second time upon Monday 7th June.

BRITISH TRANSPORT DOCKS BILL (By Order)

Read a Second time and committed.

LONDON TRANSPORT BILL (By Order)

Order for Second Reading read.

To be read a Second time upon Tuesday 8th June.

COUNTY OF SOUTH GLAMORGAN BILL [Lords] (By Order)

Order for Second Reading read.

To be read a Second time upon Thursday 10th June.

Oral Answers to Questions — NORTHERN IRELAND

Security (Working Party)

Mr. Biggs-Davison: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland whether he will make a statement on the general conclusions of the working party on security.

The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Merlyn Rees): I will report the conclusions of the Ministerial Committee to the House in an appropriate way.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: This clearly must not be a rush job, but does not the Secretary of State think it is about time that some results came out of this working party? Is he aware of the intense dissatisfaction—indeed, it has been expressed to him—on the Opposition side of the House at what appears to us to be a lack of co-ordination between the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the Regular Army and the Ulster Defence Regiment?
Will he say whether the working party's work will result in finding an answer to the problem—we are with him on this—of laying by the heels the godfathers and not merely the small fry of thuggery and terrorism?

Mr. Rees: I must tell the hon. Gentleman that the purpose of the Working Party on Security, which I instituted at the turn of the year, was to look at the long-term problem of security in the Province. I felt it was time we looked at the long-term problem instead of living from day to day, as we have since the first time soldiers went there in an ad hoc way in 1969.
There will be no immediate results from the working party. It might be that more money or more men will be required. It is a long-term study. I make that clear, because there is a tendency in Northern Ireland to believe that something will happen overnight.
Anything that needs changing in the way of security, co-operation or otherwise, is a matter for the GOC, who is the director of military operations. I have


discussed with him the question of co-operation between all arms. He believes that this is good and right, and that changes of a structural nature are needed in certain fields. These are taking place at the moment. But nowhere in any of our thinking is there any thought of a return of the RUC as a para-military force, as it was in 1969.

Mr. McNamara: Is my right hon. Friend aware that recent statements from Opposition spokesmen, describing the security policy as being one of weakness, can only encourage the Provisional IRA? Is he further aware that some of these statements, asking for special forces, can only strike horror into the minds of the minority arid encourage overall the paramilitary forces on the Protestant side, as well as weakening the morale of the security forces as a whole?.

Mr. Rees: I think it is important that whatever we say is understood by the people of Northern Ireland. It is a place—given the emotions arising from the killings that go on—where many of the things that we say are misunderstood.
I have made it abundantly clear, and I say again—it is worth saying—that when I talk about the primacy of the police I am not talking about a return to the past. I want to supply the resources for the police to be an efficient police force. That is what it is about. That may take time, because of the provision of money, training, and so on.

Mr. Goodhart: When will the Secretary of State reach a decision about increasing the size of the Regular element in the Ulster Defence Regiment by about 800 men—a proposal that has received very wide support from those with great knowledge of the security situation in Northern Ireland?

Mr. Rees: The question of con rates is a matter for my right hon. Friend, the Defence Secretary, and is being looked at. What is not wanted by my security officers is a Regular battalion, or battalions. They are firmly against that. I shall work within the law with the UDR. I give it my full support. I see it at work in all parts of the Province. We have to take into account, whether we like it or not, that in certain parts of the Province, parts of our security forces are seen and are not supported. What I

have to do with the UDR is to help it to be accepted. That is far more important than changes within it.

Mr. Farr: Will the right hon. Gentleman, in that long-term review, consider the establishment of a small, highly-trained and very well equipped light mobile force, drawn from volunteers from the Army, the police and the Ulster Defence Regiment, as a special measure to seek out and destroy those who are engaged in trying to bring about the destruction of law and order in Northern Ireland?

Mr. Rees: Certainly, in the rural areas one needs mobility, which, on the whole, is what the Army has provided, together with the police patrol groups. I would not deny that mobility is necessary. But it is sometimes forgotten that what is required is not so much a question of mobility as of knowledge. That point was brought home to me again in examining a case of murder that took place last week. Although such cases are for the police to deal with, I look at these things myself. It is a question of knowledge—of knowing who was involved. The nature of the violence has changed from the large-scale violence on the streets that was happening six years ago. If there is need for mobility with regard to crime detection, I shall do what I can to provide it.

Mr. Fitt: Does my right hon. Friend accept that, allied with the security problem, there is also the problem of making political progress in Northern Ireland, and that the one cannot be settled without the other? In that respect, is he aware of the statements now being made in Northern Ireland by the leader of the Official Unionist Party, calling upon his supporters in Northern Ireland not to co-operate with my right hon. Friend, on the spurious ground that they do not agree with his security attitude?

Mr. Rees: I am not really worried about that. I do not attend many social functions in Northern Ireland, but I do attend daily meetings with bodies for which I am responsible to this House, and I know that they will not be sympathetic to silly statements of that kind. On the political aspect, we cannot force the politicians of Northern Ireland to agree, as my hon. Friend knows. Agreement


has to emerge there. We tried before from this House; we got agreement here and then found that it did not stand up in Northern Ireland. We must not do that again.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Opposition will not be deterred from doing their duty and making responsible criticism where necessary by unworthy suggestions that that is helpful to the Provisional IRA? Does he agree that what is needed is to restore and improve confidence? We support him in the policy of re-establishing the primacy of the police, but while the RUC are in the front line and policemen and police women are suffering terrible casualties, is there not a case for their having the equipment and techniques to protect themselves?

Mr. Rees: I accept that. I was not denying it. I was making the point that we have to be careful that we are not misunderstood in Northern Ireland, where it is rather easy to be misunderstood.

Political Situation

Mr. Watkinson: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the political situation in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Gow: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what discussions he has had with political leaders in Northern Ireland on the continuation of direct rule.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: Since the dissolution of the Constitutional Convention on 5th March, I have had a number of meetings with the leaders and members of political parties in Northern Ireland to discuss issues of common concern, for example direct rule and the security situation. As I told the House on 5th March, it is my firmly-held intention that the Government will continue to discharge fully their responsibility for all aspects of the affairs of Northern Ireland and provide firm, fair and resolute government.

Mr. Watkinson: Would my right hon. Friend care to comment on the statement issued by two leading Northern Ireland politicians only this week, suggesting extra-parliamentary activities? Does he

agree that that only serves to undermine the policy of Her Majesty's Government in Northern Ireland? Does he not also agree that such activities involve a somewhat curious interpretation of the term "loyalty"?

Mr. Rees: I agree with my hon. Friend. In Northern Ireland, among some Loyalists, there is always a curious interpretation of what the word means. We saw just that at the time of the Ulster workers' strike. Loyalty to the Queen in Parliament is what I understand by the word. But any such threatened actions taken in Northern Ireland are not for me but for the Chief Constable, who is responsible for dealing with anything that may happen.

Mr. Gow: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House how long he envisages direct rule continuing, and whether he does not think that there is at present a political vacuum in Ulster, between the locally-elected people at county council level and the Secretary of State himself?

Mr. Rees: I do not accept that there is a political vacuum in Northern Ireland. I agree that our aim must be to get a devolved administration there, but, on the whole, people in Northern Ireland have had enough of politics in recent years. I want to get political life nurtured again, but at the right time. When the hon. Gentleman asks me "How long?", I can only reply that I do not know. But I will tell the hon. Gentleman—because there is no sign of devolved government—that if there is no direct rule there is anarchy, because there is no one to hand over to in Northern Ireland. Her Majesty's Government will keep direct rule, perhaps with some changes, for as long as is necessary.

Mr. Powell: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the elected political leaders of Northern Ireland sit in this House, on both sides?

Mr. Rees: I agree that that is so, and increasingly people are putting matters that concern them through their Westminster Members.

Mr. Dalyell: Will my right hon. Friend expand on the phrase that he used—that there is no sign of devolved government?

Mr. Rees: I meant that the developed government set up from this House fell down. Then we set up a Convention, and


asked the politicians to agree. They did not. At the moment I do not see any chance of an agreement in Northern Ireland for a devolved administration.

Mr. Neave: How can there be any advance if the Secretary of State, through his officials, gives political credibility to organisations like the Provisional Sinn Fein by currently holding these talks? Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm or deny that they are going on? Did he read the interview, reported in the Sunday Times last week, with the President of the Provisional Sinn Fein, who said that these talks are very valuable to him? Are they very valuable to the people, and, if so, how?

Mr. Rees: The hon. Gentleman should not always believe what he reads in newspapers. If what he has been saying is based on newspaper reports, it is not good enough. Over all, my staff have talked to individuals belonging to legal organisations—that is quite clear. In Northern Ireland, many people who belong to legal organisations have views which are anathema to many of us in this House. There have never been negotiations with anyone, but, as I have told the House before, it is valuable to explain Government policy, and my advisers believe that benefit is to be gained from doing so. The exchanges with the Sinn Fein have not been anything like as frequent as many people appear to think, but there was great advantage in them about a year ago.

Mr. Neave: Is not that answer very unsatisfactory? Is not the real point that the right hon. Gentleman is giving political credibility to the Provisional Sinn Fein? Surely he will tell us that it is representative of a terrorist organisation.

Mr. Rees: I say again that it is advantageous to me and those working for me to know what is going on in Northern Ireland. There never have been negotiations. I simply state again that these meetings have not been nearly as frequent as the newspapers and others seem to make out, but if it is considered necessary, they will happen again.

Mr. Craig: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the political situation must get more difficult as the security situation deteriorates? The casualty list for this part of the year is greater than

in 1972. Whilst we would like to see political progress, it is important to stress that, as the security situation gets more difficult, we as politicians can do very little to get forward movement.

Mr. Rees: I agree. When the Executive was first formed the heavy bombing campaign that took place in Belfast at the time was probably designed to make life difficult for the Executive. There is a relationship between the two. But I do not believe that political agree-men would end the violence. The two are connected, but it is not the simple connection that some people think. The nature of the violece has changed. The ability of a very small number of people in the Province to cause trouble is much greater than I thought. In the long run I am sure that it is a question not of numbers in the security forces but of their efficiency in dealing with small numbers of people who murder and maim.

Mr. Speaker: I allowed a quarter of an hour on the first two questions because they covered a very wide range of topics, but we shall have to move quicker with the rest of Questions.

Housing Finance

Mr. Fitt: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement about the inquiry into housing finance in Northern Ireland.

The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. Concannon): Average public authority rents in Northern Ireland are lower than in Great Britain. The financial relationship between the Northern Ireland Department of Environment and the Housing Executive is under review, and I hope to make a statement shortly about new arrangements to replace the existing complicated system of grants, subsidies and deficit payments.
My officials are also associated with the major review of all aspects of housing finance in both public and private sectors in Great Britain set on foot by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, and already well advanced.
There will be ample opportunity for informed public discussion of the issues involved when the results of these two reviews are available, and I do not consider that any further Northern Ireland inquiry would be justified.

Mr. Fitt: Does my hon. Friend agree that while there is a need for the provision of thousands of public authority houses in Northern Ireland, because of the present state of houses there, those houses that are built must be let at a rent that the tenant can afford? In view of the unemployment and deprivation in Northern Ireland, is he satisfied that the present rent structure of local authority housing is not too high?

Mr. Concannon: The present structure is very much in Northern Ireland's favour. In May 1975, the average rent was £2·45, while in England and Wales it was £4·16. Also, there is a rent rebate system in Northern Ireland comparable to that existing in the rest of the United Kingdom. I am disappointed by the take-up of rebates, but that is the fault not of hon. Members in this House but of the bad advice given by non-elected people who should know better.

Man and Mourne Fishing Grounds

Mr. Powell: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what restrictions on fishing are expected to be in force in the Man and Mourne fishing grounds in the Irish Sea during, the remainder of 1976.

Mr. Rees: Discussions are taking place with the industry about the restrictions on herring fishing to be applied this year in the northern part of the Irish Sea. The conservation measures for the Mourne fishery within 12 miles of the coast will not be finalised until the above discussions have been concluded.

Mr. Powell: Will the right hon. Gentleman do his best to ensure that whatever restrictions are imposed in the Irish Sea—both inside and outside the 12-mile limit and fully accepted by the Mourne fishermen—will be policed against all other parties as far as is humanly possible?

Mr. Rees: Yes, I can give that assurance.

Westminster Parliament (Parity of Representation)

Mr. Marten: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many United Kingdom parliamentary seats the citizens of Northern Ireland would have if there were parity of electorates between

Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.

Mr. Rees: If the existing 635 seats for the whole of the United Kingdom were reallocated between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland strictly in accordance with the size of the electorate in each of the several parts of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland would have 16 seats.

Mr. Marten: As parity of representation is an essential part of democracy, should we not compare like with like, and compare Northern Ireland with Wales and Scotland rather than with the United Kingdom as a whole? That would give Northern Ireland about 20 seats.

Mr. Rees: Taking account of any future decisions on that subject, the hon. Member must consider it in terms of the current devolution for Scotland and Wales. The devolved powers of the Northern Ireland Government over 50 years were far greater than anything we envisaged for Scotland or Wales.
As in discussions on Home Rule before 1918, this raises questions in terms of representation, because of the extent of the powers of the devolved administration, which cover industry completely.

Mr. Dalyell: If Northern Ireland were treated as generously as the Scots are at present, there would be 23 Members for the Province. How can the Secretary of State justify, in essence, giving Scotland an Assembly and denying one to Northern Ireland?

Mr. Rees: I am not denying anything to Northern Ireland. I deal with Northern Ireland matters and I am pleased to leave Scottish matters to other people.

Sir Nigel Fisher: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that if the Government sets up Assemblies in Scotland and Wales, but not in Northern Ireland, the disparity in representation here will be even more marked and more inequitable? Is he content with that state of affairs?

Mr. Rees: If we get into the position in which a decision is taken that there should be no devolved administration in Northern Ireland, unlike elsewhere—I hope that we never shall get into that position—and that the Province should


be integrated as part of the United Kingdom, the argument, in one sense, would be complete. But to imagine that the rest of the United Kingdom should have devolved administration and Northern Ireland should not, in the long run, is something that I do not want to contemplate.

Border Co-operation

Mr. Townsend: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on border co-operation with the Government of the Republic of Ireland.

Mr. Rees: The Government regard co-operation with the authorities in the Irish Republic as vital in debating terrorism in Northern Ireland. Co-operation continues to improve, and both Governments have now taken steps to bring into effect the provisions of their respective legislation against fugitive offenders.
In the economic field, I said on 24th November 1975 that the two Governments had made a joint approach to the EEC Commission for financial assistance towards a study of communications in the Londonderry-Donegal area. I am pleased to announce that consultants have now been chosen to carry out the study, and that I expect it to be completed in about six months.

Mr. Townsend: Is the Secretary of State aware that the British Government have accepted no fewer than 69 complaints from the Irish Government in the last three years, concerning overflying by British military aircraft? This is a continuing source of friction between the North and the South. Will the right hon. Gentleman strongly press the Government of the South for proper overflying rights on both sides of the border?

Mr. Rees: Even with overflying rights for particular purposes, this sort of overflying does happen, as do crossings of the border. There was one crossing of the border the other evening, to the extent of only 20 metres. This type of thing has to be sorted out in a better fashion, but in general the handling of these matters by the Irish authorities is first rate. I have no grumbles about it.

Mr. Hardy: We accept that the Government of the Republic must be acutely

conscious of the fact of its territorial sovereignty, but is my right hon. Friend aware that the helpful and co-operative attitude that he just mentioned should soon have an effect on public attitudes in the North?

Mr. Rees: One aspect of the co-operation that I should particularly like to mention is concerned with explosives. There is no doubt that the incidence of the discovery of explosives this year was much higher than last year. That stems from the close co-operation between the Governments of the North and South. This co-operation has shown considerable results.

Mr. Farr: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that another very real cause of friction between the Government of the Republic and our Government is the continuing clandestine discussions that our Government has with representatives of illegal organisations there?

Mr. Rees: The hon. Member keeps using the word "continuing". I have not noticed this, and both Governments know what they are doing.

Unemployed Persons

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many persons are currently unemployed in the Province; and what was the figure at the same time in 1975.

The Minister of State, Northern Ire-land Office (Mr. Moyle): 51,466 in May 1976 and 37,278 in May 1975.

Mr. McNair-Wilson: The Minister will be conscious of the dismay and disappointment that we all feel at those staggeringly high figures. When will the Government's study of a new economic strategy for the Province be completed? How many new jobs will be created by the Northern Ireland Development Agency?

Mr. Moyle: The study should be available before the Summer Recess. The Northern Ireland Development Agency scheme and other similar schemes will probably provide employment for about 1,700 people in amenity and environmental projects and work of a community nature.

Mr. Ashton: Is my hon. Friend aware that members of my trade union who are working at the Harland and Wolff shipyard are very grateful for the aid which the Government has sent to them, and they are watching carefully the events in the House today? They are very concerned about the possible planning blight on the British shipbuilding industry which could arise out of today's decision in the House.

Mr. Moyle: I am glad to learn from my hon. Friend that employees in Harland and Wolff are grateful for the assistance that we are giving. On a wider point, as a result of being in charge of the Department of Commerce for six weeks I have begun to feel that if there were no Government assistance to the Northern Ireland economy, Northern Ireland probably would not have an economy.

Mr. McCusker: As a Minister in a Labour Government, is not the hon. Member ashamed of these figures, which are the worst unemployment levels since Northern Ireland was established? What does he intend to do to reduce them?

Mr. Moyle: I am not pleased at having to announce the figures, and in that respect the hon. Gentleman is right The Government are studying the situation with a view to producing plans during the course of the summer, and of course all the assistance that is available to the creation of employment in the rest of the United Kingdom has been made available to Northern Ireland. The result of that is that about 3,500 jobs have been saved by the counter-redundancy training scheme and the temporary employment subsidy. The recruitment subsidy for school leavers has assured about 1,250 school leavers of jobs. Under the Government's most recent measures, £8 million is available to Northern Ireland, and this will be used over the next three years to provide over 1,000 new jobs and to train 1,500 people, mostly young people from school.

Craigavon (Recreational Facilities)

Mr. McNamara: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, how much public finance has been provided for recreational provision in the area covered by Craigavon Council.

Mr. Concannon: In the five-year period from 1st April 1971 to 31st March 1976, Government grants totalling about £350,000 have been paid to the Craigavon Borough Council and its predecessors in respect of recreational facilities. This, with the council's contribution, represents an outlay of public funds of approximately £525,000.
During the same period the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture and Enterprise Ulster have spent about £124,000 and £340,000, respectively, on recreational facilities in the area. In addition, about £280,000 has been paid to voluntary groups and the Southern Educational and Library Board youth centres.

Mr. McNamara: Will my hon. Friend confirm the rough calculation that that represents about £1·25 millions? Is he satisfied that full use is being made of all the facilities created by these public funds? If not, will he make sure that a message goes to Craigavon and other places telling it that if it does not use these facilities to the full it will not receive any more public money.

Mr. Concannon: I can confirm that my hon. Friend is about right in his figure. The provision and arrangement of recreational facilities are matters within the functions of each council. However, we should not forget that a great deal of Government finance goes towards these facilities and that the Government have a right to take an interest in their use. I therefore intend to pursue further with the council the provision of Government grants, and I have stressed to councils in Northern Ireland that they should maximise the revenue account in respect of these facilities.

Mr. McCusker: Does the Minister accept that the administration and management of these recreational facilities are among the very few responsibilities left to councils in Northern Ireland? Does he also accept that how they use them is their responsibility, and that of the citizens of their boroughs?

Mr. Concannon: I have stressed that, but Ministers cannot just sit back while £1·25 millions is put into local councils like these and have no say in what the money should be used for.

Housing Executive (Sales to Tenants)

Mr. Dunlop: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many houses the housing executive has sold to tenants in Mid-Ulster.

Mr. Concannon: At 31st March 1976 the executive had sold 97 dwellings in this area.

Mr. Dunlop: Is the Minister aware that huge anomalies exist in the valuation of these properties? I know of two houses, joined together, which share half an acre of land, and they have been valued at £3,000. Not very far away there is——

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member is seeking information, not giving it. He must ask a question.

Mr. Dunlop: Is the Minister aware that there is an anomaly in the valuations, because not far away is a house which was built 13 years later and which has half an acre of land to itself? Its value is put at £1,000 less than the other two houses. Will the Minister try to ensure that there is more equality and standardisation in the valuation of these properties, which people have bought more than 10 times over?

Mr. Concannon: The valuation of the properties is done by the district valuer. One of the difficulties has been that although a valuation is arrived at for sitting tenants, when the empty cottages are put on the open market our reserve price is greatly exceeded.

Expenditure

Mr. Flannery: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will provide an itemised breakdown of the cost to the Government of all allocations of finance, including expenditure on defence, to Northern Ireland for the years 1973–74, 1974–75 and 1975–76, respectively.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: Details of Government expenditure in Northern Ireland are contained in public expenditure White Papers, to which I would refer my hon. Friend.

Mr. Flannery: I have searched through the public expenditure White Paper and the Defence Estimates, and I have been to the Library, but I have been unable to find the overall cost to this country of what is happening in Northern Ireland. Does my right hon. Friend accept that that is totally unsatisfactory, because the people on both sides of the water need to know what that cost is? Does he agree that the sum is bound to have tremendous political significance? Is it not bound to have an effect on people in Britain, who expect the two sides in Northern Ireland to come closer together in democratic efforts to make peace in view of this vast outflow of money to Northern Ireland.

Mr. Rees: I have a photostat copy from the White Paper Cmnd. 6393, pages 112 and 113, and all the information I have comes from that. About £1,500 million is spent in Northern Ireland every year, and of that 60 per cent. is raised in taxation in the Province. The rest, to use the parlance of the document, is a subvention from the United Kingdom Government. Any comparable part of the rest of the United Kingdom would throw up similar figures. I am able to produce those figures only because the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has his own accounts, because he operates a form of devolved administration. Those people who talk about independence should look at the figures very carefully, because their aims would damn Northen Ireland to a very much lower standard of living. Those people in Northern Ireland who say that they do not accept the will of the Queen in Parliament, although they call themselves Loyalists, would do well to look at the figures. It is right that we should treat Northern Ireland like the rest of the United Kingdom. It is a part of the United Kingdom, and that is the best way to proceed.

European Community (Aid)

Mr. Molyneaux: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland whether the sums received or to be received from the EEC for regional purposes in Northern Ireland have been or will be offset by corresponding reductions in provision for those purposes from United Kingdom funds; and if he will make a statement.

Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Raymond Carter): The primary instrument for implementing EEC regional policy is the European Regional Development Fund. Contributions from the fund allow the Government to go ahead with a greater total of regional commitments than could be managed otherwise. Contributions earned by infrastructure projects in Northern Ireland are used to reduce the capital borrowings of the public bodies which have substantial infrastructure responsibilities. These contributions are not offset by any corresponding reduction in the Northern Ireland grant in aid to the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund. Contributions earned by industrial projects are retained by the Government in partial repayment for industrial assistance already provided.

Mr. Molyneaux: In view of the scale of United Kingdom contributions to the EEC, is it not surprising that total net regional grants to the United Kingdom should be so small?

Mr. Carter: I do not think that that point has much relevance to the Question. The hon. Member is now talking about the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland receives a disproportionate amount of regional aid in both EEC and United Kingdom terms.

Criminal Injuries Compensation

Mr. Goodhart: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland whether he will make a statement about the review of the working of the Criminal Injuries (Compensation) Act 1968.

Mr. Concannon: I have nothing further to add to the reply given to my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Mr. Kerr) on 28th April.

Mr. Goodhart: Is the Minister aware of very widespread anger in this country at the award of up to £20,000 to a convicted IRA man, when families of soldiers killed in Northern Ireland have been getting far less? For 12 months hon. Members on both sides of the House have agreed that this is an urgent matter, so why has it all taken so long?

Mr. Concannon: It would be quite improper for me to comment on that case. I do not think that it furthers the hon. Gentleman's case to make such accusa-

tions. Members of the security forces in Northern Ireland, and their dependants, have the benefit of Service pensions which specifically cover the risk of injury and death. Under the Act, these have to be taken fully into consideration. When a Service man dies in Northern Ireland as a result of criminal injury, the claim by his widow or dependants is dealt with on the same basis as are claims by widows and dependants of civilians. Any compensation award is for financial loss. I have figures that disprove some of the accusations made about this matter.

Mr. Townsend: Will the Minister consider excluding from compensation those who have been involved in acts of terrorism?

Mr. Concannon: That is a matter for the statute law and the courts in Northern Ireland. A review is taking place and my right hon. Friend has asked that the recommendations should be in his hands by the end of this month.

Mr. McCusker: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that compensation has been awarded to four children under the age of 2 years for nervous shock? How does one assess nervous shock in a child under the age of 2?

Mr. Concannon: When one has been in Northern Ireland, one gets used to nervous shock. It is not for me to contemplate how the law arrives at decisions in these cases, but compensation has been given to young children in Northern Ireland on four occasions.

North Belfast (Incident)

Mr. Carson: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement about the police investigation into the incident in North Belfast on 12th April 1976 when it was alleged that two young Roman Catholic boys were attacked and set on fire.

Mr. Moyle: I understand from the Chief Constable that on 13th April two boys aged 8 and 13 years were admitted to Mater Hospital Belfast suffering from bums to the face, hands and chest. The boys alleged that they had been attacked by a gang of youths in the Oldpark district and that petrol had been thrown over them and ignited. Police inquiries into the incident are continuing.

Mr. Carson: Does the hon. Gentleman share my hope that the news media will give at least as much prominence to the fact that it has been proved that there was no such outrage, which led to reports that created a deplorable impression throughout the country? Will he confirm that forensic reports have proved that no liquid was poured on these boys?

Mr. Moyle: I cannot comment on the hon. Gentleman's second point, because this matter is in the hands of the RUC and investigations are continuing. If my hopes about the news media were borne out on ail occasions, the situation in Northern Ireland might be very different.

Terrorist Activities

Mr. Moonman: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will give consideration to the setting up of a detailed research project into the psychiatric effects of terrorist activity in Northern Ireland: and if he will make a statement on such evidence as exists at present.

Mr. Concannon: This is a subject that is closely monitored by the Northern Ireland Department of Health and Social Services, in conjuction with specialists in this field, and I am doubtful whether a detailed research project would provide practical benefit.

Mr. Moonman: Is my hon. Friend aware that many of us appreciated the initiative by the Secretary of State in regard to the research project in the southern part of Ireland? Will he consult the Secretary of State for Health and Social Security to see whether it would be possible for some of the NHS budget to be diverted to the mental health sector? There is sufficient evidence to justify this.

Mr. Concannon: We have our own DHSS in Northern Ireland. All the evidence is that terrorist activity has not affected the pattern of psychiatric illness. There has been a modest increase in the number of patients admitted to hospital, but the hospital population has tended to fall. There has been a significant decrease in depressive illnesses in Belfast and other riot-affected areas. The suicide rate has fallen by 50 per cent.

Mr. Sandelson: My hon. Friend is aware of my interest in this matter. Can he say to what extent young people

in the Province have been psychologically affected and, in particular, how their educational progress has been affected by terrorism and civil disturbance?

Mr. Concannon: I have much learned advice and opinion on this matter. The psychological effects of civil disturbance on children can be divided into short-term and long-term effects. In the former, children enjoy the excitement of the situation and relatively few become disturbed, because their anti-social behaviour is condoned within the framework of the community. In the latter, when a settlement is brought about, those with feelings of violence prejudice and bigotry will find it more difficult to adjust to society and will persist in anti-social behaviour, causing problems for police, educationists and numerous other social services. All that I have to add to that advice is "Amen".

Anti-Terrorist Measures

Mr. McCusker: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will consider the establishment of a specialist full-time anti-terrorist unit recruited principally from the ranks of the UDR and RUC.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: The security forces, including the UDR and RUC, are already fully engaged in combating terrorism.

Mr. McCusker: I acknowledge the success of the RUC, but is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are certain areas where that success has been limited? If he were to implement my suggestion, would it not divest the RUC of the paramilitary rôle that neither of us wishes it to have?

Mr. Rees: In rural areas, there is a problem. Terrorism shows itself in different ways. I believe that the Chief Constable and the GOC who directs military operations are adopting the right approach. They will ensure that the RUC does not become a para-military force.

Mr. Neave: We are glad to hear that the Chief Constable is looking at this matter. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the anti-terrorist unit that we envisage would be useful as a mobile force in the border zone?

Mr. Rees: The RUC has a mobile force in the border zone at the moment. It becomes highly dependent on the Army the nearer it gets to the border. The UDR is a part-time force. I visited it in the border area recently. Changes can be made, but they are matters for the director of military operations.

ITALY (PRIME MINISTER)

Mr. Marten: asked the Prime Minister when he will next meet the Prime Minister of Italy.

The Prime Minister (Mr. James Callaghan): I hope to meet the Italian Prime Minister at the next European Council in Brussels on 12th and 13th July.

Mr. Marten: Will the Prime Minister on that occasion raise with the Italian Prime Minister, and perhaps with other Common Market colleagues, the propriety of a Commissioner in the Community standing as a parliamentary candidate in the Italian elections? Now that we have evidence that a senior Commissioner, Signor Spinelli, is standing on the Communist ticket, perhaps the Prime Minister will initiate what his predecessor used to call a full, frank and searching inquiry to see whether there is any further Communist penetration of the Community by other Little Red Riding Hoods? This is very disturbing.

The Prime Minister: I understand that Commissioner Spinelli is standing as an Independent on the Communist Party list. It is not for me to reconcile these strange doctrines. He has withdrawn from all official duties in the Community for the moment. If elected he will resign, and there is some evidence that if he is not elected he will not wish to resume his functions. There has been no secret about Commissioner Spinelli. He was a member of the Communist Party many years ago, before he became a Commissioner. There is therefore no need for an inquiry to find out about secret Communists.

Mr. Dalyell: Will my right hon. Friend use his powers of persuasion to convince the incoming Italian Government that the best chances of technical success for the JET fusion project are at Culham, and that the Italians might do well to look for

other research projects for their understandable worries about Ispra?

The Prime Minister: The project at Culham is one of the most advanced in Europe. It is one that I pressed for consistently when I was Foreign Secretary. I know there is a great Italian interest in the matter. It is a Community project and there are no Community projects of that character established in the United Kingdom. I think it would be a very worthwhile opportunity both for Europe and the United Kingdom, especially as we have one of the best teams in the world assembled at Culham for this very new and exciting venture.

Mr. Watt: When the Prime Minister meets the Italian Prime Minister will he ask him to investigate the racket under which fat cattle leave this country, with a slaughter premium paid on them as they go, are transported to Italy, where they are slaughtered and subsequently shipped to Denmark, with monetary compensation amounts being paid as they cross each border? How can the common agricultural policy operate properly when such rackets are going on?

The Prime Minister: I do not think I shall be discussing that with the Italian Prime Minister, but the point raised by the hon. Member is important. The CAP does not operate to the benefit of this country, and it involves a great deal of money being spent unnecessarily. It is our intention on all occasions—and certainly before the next agricultural price review, in the spring—to raise these matters at the highest level in order to get an agricultural system better fitted to the needs of the consumer, as well as giving producers decent returns.

Mr. Heath: To return to the supplementary question of my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten), will the Prime Minister go further than he has been asked and take an initiative at the Heads of Government meeting to secure an agreement that once a Commissioner takes up his appointment he will remain in the appointment for the full agreed term, eschew party politics and not return for electoral purposes, or give notice of a return for electoral purposes, until his term, which he has accepted, is completed?

The Prime Minister: I think that there is something to consider here, but, as will be in the right hon. Gentleman's mind, this is not the first time that someone has given an indication that he wishes to return to politics in his own country before he finishes his term of office. I have thought of at least one recent occasion when perhaps it might have been rather convenient for that to be done, but I do not wish to particularise. On the general question, of course, we should consider what should be the position of Commissioners in these matters. On the whole, I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that if they are appointed for a fixed term they should see out that term. If they wish to return to their national politics, they should do so after the end of the term.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: Does my right hon. Friend accept that at least the Italian Communists have some regard for the employment prospects of their countrymen, in sharp contrast to the callous and irresponsible attitude to the jobs and livelihoods of those employed in shipbuilding in this country, as demonstrated by the hypocritical shower on the Opposition Benches, which overshadows even the Leader of the Opposition's suggestion, in the United States, that in order to cut public expenditure she would stop issuing kidney machines?

The Prime Minister: I think I shall have more important matters to discuss with the Italian Prime Minister than the machinations of the Opposition, but I hope it is being borne in on them that there are a great many jobs at stake today—[HON. MEMBERS: "Yours".] If Conservative Members think that I care about this job, it only shows the lengths and the depths to which they have sunk. I must say that it is an interesting hors-d'oeuvre to the nature of the debate that we are going to have, if this is to be the level on which it is to be conducted.

BINBROOK

Mr. Brotherton: asked the Prime Minister if he will pay an official visit to Binbrook.

The Prime Minister: I have at present no plans to do so.

Mr. Brotherton: is the Prime Minister aware that Binbrook lies at the heart of the Lincolnshire agricultural land and that many of Binbrook's farmers are very concerned about the present value of the green pound? Will he tell the House whether the Government intend to revalue the green pound, to bring it back into line with the pound sterling?

The Prime Minister: I am sure that Binbrook is a very salubrious and charming hamlet. I imagine that every day its inhabitants discuss nothing other than the green pound. On the whole, we feel it would be wrong to revalue the green pound at present, because with the increased price of commodities that is not within our control. It is everybody's responsibility to try to keep the rate of inflation down as far as we can.

Mr. Fernyhough: Does my right hon. Friend readily agree that whatever the sufferings of the farmers from the devaluation of the green pound, members of the farming community, especially the Lincolnshire farmers, have never had such a bonanza as they have had from the price they have been getting for their potatoes over the past nine months?

The Prime Minister: Yes, I think that potatoes have done exceptionally well—[Interruption.] Unfortunately, I have no quota myself. But other commodities have not done so well. For the farming community generally, the spring has enabled the work to go ahead extremely well. There is now a shortage of rain, but the dairy industry is moving ahead. On the whole, I do not think that there is a bonanza, except in some commodities.

Mr. Blaker: Will the right hon. Gentleman suggest to his right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson) that Binbrook would be a very suitable place to put out to grass Paddy the labrador, whose official career is now presumably over, and who must be surprised and disappointed, as we all are, that he has not appeared in today's Honours List?

Mr. Mike Thomas: If my right hon. Friend cannot visit Binbrook, will he visit Newcastle upon Tyne and talk to the workers and management at Swan Hunter Shipbuilders Ltd.? Will he explain to them how he is going to deal


with the problems that may be created this evening by the irresponsible exaggeration by Conservative Members of a genuine technical error and that may affect the livelihoods of the men and management in an industry which is now in the process of getting its fourth vesting day?

The Prime Minister: It is true that the shipbuilding industry faces the greatest crisis it has faced since the end of the war. That is true of the world situation, as I think Conservative Members know. Therefore, it is vitally important that we should get ahead as quickly as possible with the reorganisation of the industry, so as to save a great many jobs, although it will have to be faced that a lot of rationalisation is needed if the British shipbuilding industry is to be saved. No parliamentary successes by the Opposition will prevent that from happening.

Mr. Gorst: The Prime Minister mentioned a moment ago the revaluation of the green pound, but there is another form of revaluation that is long overdue. Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the creation of an honour that honourable men can honourably accept?

HOUNSLOW

Mr. Tebbit: asked the Prime Minister if he will pay an official visit to Hounslow.

The Prime Minister: I have at present no plans to do so.

Mr. Tebbit: As Hounslow is one of the places that would have been affected by the Prime Minister's efforts to amend the Boundary Commission report in favour of the Labour Party a few years ago, would it not be a good place for the right hon. Gentleman to visit, so that he can explain to the people whether there are any limits to his willingness to alter the rules of the game to get the result that he wants?

The Prime Minister: The House will take a decision on the matters that are before it today. I am told that there is a majority of the House that is not composed of members of the Labour Government or of the Labour Party. There-

fore, I assume it is the House that will reach its conclusions.

Mr. Grimond: Will the Prime Minister allow a free vote this evening?

The Prime Minister: I have no doubt that every one of my hon. Friends will be in the Lobby in support of the Government.

Mr. Bidwell: If my right hon. Friend is in the Hounslow district—he can easily go through it on his way to Chequers—will he bear in mind that Southall is quite close by? Will he stop off and speak to the indigenous and Indian communities of Southall, and assure them that it will be no part of the Labour Government's policies now or in future to deny families their proper family rights, in spite of the worry about immigration and the necessity to control it?

The Prime Minister: I have always been in favour of controlling immigration. Indeed. I introduced systems to that effect. There is a difference between controlled entry and the abuses that are taking place, to which attention has been directed. I believe it is in the interests of the communities themselves—it is certainly the desire of many of their leaders—that abuses and evasion of the law should not be practised.

Mrs. Thatcher: To return to the previous matter, on the basis of whose rule book will the decision tonight be taken—the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, as interpreted by Mr. Speaker, or the changing instructions of the Prime Minister?

The Prime Minister: It will be taken in the normal course by Members walking through the Lobbies as free Members of this House.

Mrs. Thatcher: Will the Prime Minister therefore undertake to accept the result of tonight's vote and not have another vote the week after next?

The Prime Minister: It will depend what the vote is about—[Interruption.] I have plenty of time. Hon. Members can shout as long as they like. It will depend what the vote is about the week after next. It will depend on the form in which it is put. As far as today is concerned, the House will reach a conclusion


and consequences will follow from that. We shall see the consequences when the vote has been declared.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS

Mr. Gorst: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In answer to two supplementary questions this afternoon, the Prime Minister remained obstinately in his seat and refused to answer. [Interruption.] The point of order which I wish to put to you arising out of this matter is whether, if this practice were to be extended, there is any point in hon. Members putting any supplementary questions to the Prime Minister at all.

Mr. Speaker: The attitude of Ministers to Questions is for them, not for me.

The Prime Minister: May I add, Mr. Speaker, that I always endeavour to give courteous answers to questions, but I also reserve the right to remain in my seat if I do not think that a question is worthy of an answer.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &amp;c.

Ordered,
That the Anti-Dumping Duty Order 1976 (S.I., 1976, No. 736) be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.—[Mr. Foot.]

Ordered,
That the Air Navigation (Overseas Territories) Order 1976 (S.I., 1976, No. 421) be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.—[Mr. Foot.]

Ordered,
That the Air Navigation (Fifth Amendment) Order 1976 (S.I., 1976, No. 583) be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.—[Mr. Foot.]

AIRCRAFT AND SHIPBUILDING INDUSTRIES BILL (STANDING ORDERS)

3.32 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. Eric G. Varley): I beg to move,
That, in view of the serious consequences to the industries concerned and for those employed in them of further delay and uncertainty, in relation to the proceedings on the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill, any Standing Orders relating to Private Business, and consideration of the application of any such Standing Orders, are dispensed with.

Mr. Speaker: I have selected the amendment in the name of the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition, to leave out from 'That' to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof,
'this House endorses Mr. Speaker's ruling of 26th May 1976, which confirmed that the rights of private citizens might be affected by the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill, and considers that the normal procedures to defend such rights as laid down in Standing Orders should be followed'.

Mr. Varley: On 31st July 1974 my right hon. Friend, now the Secretary of State for Energy, made a statement to this House announcing the Government's intention to bring the shipbuilding industry into public ownership, and accompanying that statement he issued a discussion document. That paper, under the heading "Mobile Offshore Drilling Rigs", stated:
The Government does not intend to take into public ownership Marathon Shipbuilding (UK) Limited, makers of offshore drilling rigs.
So, from the outset, nearly two years ago, the Government made it clear that they had no intention of nationalising Marathon.
On 30th April 1975 the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill was published. Schedule 2 was drafted to exclude Marathon and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer), who was a Minister in the Department at the time, made clear in the House yesterday, the drafting took full account of the need to avoid hybridity; and it appeared to have been drafted successfully from that point of view, since it was cleared with the House authorities as not being hybrid.
What is more, none of those opposed to the Bill—either hon. Members of this


House or the assiduous lobbyists to whose activities we have become so accustomed—brought forward a charge of hybridity. Yet they had ample time to study it, and we know from their representations and from amendments put forward that they examined it line by line and comma by comma for errors and flaws.
There was not sufficient time for the Bill's passage in that 1974–75 Session, so it was reintroduced at the beginning of the new Session on 20th November. The opportunity was taken to make a number of amendments, but the definition of a ship given in paragraph 6 of Part II of Schedule 2 remained precisely as it was. Once again it was cleared with the House authorities, once again it was found not to be hybrid, and once again nobody inside or outside the House challenged its credentials as a public Bill.
The Bill was brought up for Second Reading on 2nd December. Again, no challenge. No charge of hybridity.
The Bill began its Committee stage on 11th December. Standing Committee D considered the Bill during 58 sittings—the greatest number of sittings in the history of this House of Commons. The Bill was examined in the minutest detail so that at times Ministers in charge of the Bill had the feeling that they were even being required to explain the reasons for the spaces between the words.
The Committee sat as long as the Opposition wanted it to sit. There was no guillotine. Yet during 140 hours of debate no challenge of hybridity was made against the Bill. [HON. MEMBERS: "There was."] One and a half sittings, as recently as two weeks ago on Tuesday 11th May, were devoted to considering Schedule 2—the focus for the controversy that has arisen.
The hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop), who was a member of the Committee for all the 58 sittings and the 140 hours, made six speeches during the debates on Schedule 2. Yet neither he nor anyone else on the Opposition side raised the question of Marathon or alleged that the Bill was a hybrid. [HON. MEMBERS: "They did."]
You yourself, Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday of this week twice firmly rejected contentions that the Bill was a hybrid.

Sir Derek Walker-Smith: rose——

Mr. Varley: I will not give way just now.
I recount this history not in order to challenge the good faith of anybody involved but to demonstrate that the many hundreds of people who had studied this Bill with such care for parliamentary, governmental, party political, industrial, financial or propaganda purposes all missed the apparent significance of the phrase which led you, Mr. Speaker, yesterday to rule that this Bill was prima facie hybrid.
Mr. Speaker, I want to make absolutely clear, that none of us on this side of the House is in any way seeking to challenge the ruling that you gave yesterday. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] You were good enough to confirm to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House that you did not regard anything in his statement yesterday as a challenge to your ruling and that the motion we are now to debate is in order.
Now I give way to the right hon. and learned Gentleman.

Sir Derek Walker-Smith: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for his courtesy. I think that the House would like to know the exact point he is making by these lengthy references—[Interruption.]—ample references to the proceedings in Committee. Does he accept that the onus is on the Government to establish to the satisfaction of Mr. Speaker the facts of the case for him to be able to arrive at a correct judgment about hybridity, or does he assert that there is some duty on the Opposition to establish the exact state of the Bill? Does he accept that the onus on the Government is not reduced or discharged by what happened in the Standing Committee?

Mr. Varley: I shall have something more to say about that point, but I say to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that I do not impugn anyone's good faith and I do not challenge the ruling that you, Mr. Speaker, gave yesterday. All I am saying is that the Bill was submitted on two occasions, in the formal processes, to the authorities of the House, and was cleared as a Bill which was not a hybrid Bill. That is all I am saying. It is not that your Department, Mr. Speaker, is in commission to any Department of State. You take your own independent advice. That is the only point I am making.
This controversy that has arisen, in the opinion of the Government, concerns at most a hairline hybridity—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—and it is ludicrous that a major legislative measure should face frustration on the narrowest of technicalities which apparently no one noticed for more than 13 months. Throughout, the Bill was in the Vote Office, there for people to collect. I have already recounted for how many hours it has been considered. The Stationery Office has sold about 7,000 copies of the Bill, I think. At no point was hybridity questioned.
As my right hon. Friend the Lord President stated yesterday, if the House accepts this motion today, the Government will move at Report stage an amendment to remove the tiny area of doubt that remains.

Mr. Hugh Dykes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is not the Secretary of State's phrase "hairline hybridity" a direct challenge to your solemn and considered ruling yesterday?

Mr. Speaker: No, it is not a direct challenge to my ruling yesterday. I do not wish to enlarge on that ruling, but I did have a statement prepared in which I was going to indicate to the House that it was the area of doubt that led me, following the ruling of Speaker Hylton-Foster some years ago, to decide that because of the doubt I must come down on that side.

Mr. Robert Adley: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. As the motion to which the Secretary of State is now speaking is based upon your assessment that the Government may put down any motion and it is not for your judgment, but for the judgment of the House, whether the motion is suitable, is it not, therefore, quite possible for any Government at any time to put down a motion totally eliminating all the rights of the Opposition in this House?

Mr. Speaker: I am not taking part in the debate, and that is a debating point rather than a point of order for me. Speculation about motions in the future will only hold up the debate.

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. May we expect a ruling

from you as a result of what you said, as reported at column 460 of Hansard for 26th May, when you were asked whether it was right to change the rules in the middle of the passage of a Bill so that those who were affected by it would be dealt with in one way in Committee and dealt with in another way on Report and Third Reading? You seemed to say that you would give a ruling today. I wonder whether this is the moment at which you would wish to do so.

Mr. Speaker: I said to the House, in reply to the hon. Member for Barry (Sir R. Gower), that if I thought it necessary I would make such a statement. I have taken advice, and, as I said yesterday, the House is its own master in regard to procedures. Rules which are made by the House may be varied by the House after debate, if desired, at any time. The motion is in order.

Mr. Varley: The question is whether the Marathon shipyard builds ships, and it revolves around the structure of the "Key Victoria"—raised by the hon. Member for Tiverton—which was under construction at Marathon on 31st July 1974, the relevant date. The hon. Member for Tiverton submitted that this structure is a ship within the definition of paragraph 6 of Part II of Schedule 2. On Tuesday, in supporting his contention, the hon. Member for Tiverton quoted the American Bureau of Shopping as saying that the "Key Victoria" is a vessel having the characteristic hull form of a barge. I have to tell the House that that same American Bureau of Shipping, on 17th October 1974, issued a certificate for the "Key Victoria" classifying it as
Maltese Cross Al mobile self-elevating drilling unit
as a major part of the structure—namely, the drilling legs—is non-integral with the platform, which floats only when the structure is being moved from one location to another.
It is a very great pity that Hansard does not publish illustrations, because I have in my hand a photograph of the "Key Victoria"—[Hon. MEMBERS: "Order."]—in its normal operating position. [Hon. MEMBERS: "Order."] I am making copies of this available in the Library and Vote Office this afternoon so that hon. Members may look at it.

Mr. Peter Tapsell: Is it not clear—whether or not it is his intention—that everything that the right hon. Gentleman has said so far in his speech is intended to challenge the authority of Mr. Speaker's ruling? Mr. Speaker ruled that this is a hybrid Bill, and nothing that the right hon. Gentleman says can alter that fact.

Mr. Varley: I am only saying that I want to put all the evidence that I can before the House of Commons, and it is quite right that the House should have it. That is the reason I am making this illustration available to hon. Members.

Mr. Cranley Onslow: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. If the right hon. Gentleman is seeking to put information, in this slightly irregular fashion, at the disposal of the House, will you rule that it is right that he should make full and not partial information available? In other words, if that device moves by using its legs, it may be relevant to show it standing upon them, but if it is mobile in some other way, we must be shown a picture that illustrates in which way it moves.

Mr. Varley: The only thing that I am trying to say is that in my view it is very difficult to construe that structure as a vessel within the natural meaning of that word.

Several Hon. Members: rose——

Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) has risen on a point of order.

Mr. David Crouch: I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for calling me on a point of order. My point of order is that I think that the Secretary of State is embarking on an entirely wrong approach this afternoon. My point of order to you, Mr. Speaker, is that yesterday you ruled that the House had adopted an inappropriate procedure in the matter of dealing with the Bill. I do not think that the House is suggesting that we should question you on that ruling for one moment, and I hope that the Secretary of State will not try to mislead us in this matter. Nor are the Opposition suggesting that we should have another 58 sittings on the matter. Would it not have been better for the Leader of the House to concede yesterday

that you were right, Mr. Speaker, and not to suggest, and even imply this afternoon through the Secretary of State for Industry, that you were wrong, as he is now so doing?

Mr. Speaker: Anything that challenges the ruling that I made yesterday would not be in order in this debate. That is quite clear. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State began by saying that he had no intention of challenging my ruling yesterday, and he will no doubt keep to that.

Mr. Varley: The American Bureau of Shipping——

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have just been to the Vote Office and the Library to get a copy of the photograph to which the Secretary of State referred. It is not available. Will you please do your best, Mr. Speaker, to see that hon. Members who want a copy may get it, so that we may refer to it during the Minister's excellent speech?

Mr. Varley: I said that during the course of the afternoon I would make the photograph available. I understand that steps are being taken for that to be done.

Mr. Ian Gow: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Will the Secretary of State tell the House on what date, by whom and at whose expense this photograph was taken?

Mr. Varley: rose——

Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that we shall not have bogus points of order. We want to debate the matter properly and we cannot do that if there are continual interruptions.

Mr. Michael Heseltine: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As the only purpose of producing such a photograph can be to invite the House to reach a different conclusion from that which lay behind your ruling yesterday, is it in order for the Secretary of State for Industry to refer to the photograph for the purpose of undermining your decision yesterday?

Mr. Leo Abse: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. What is being adumbrated is the weight of


evidence which we all require to enable us to determine whether your ruling, which is clear, should or should not be altered by the House. Is it not desirable that the Secretary of State should continue to give us all the information he has to enable us to reach a decision?

Mr. Speaker: The House is not considering whether my ruling is to be altered. The House is considering the motion proposed by the Minister which contains the procedure which the Government propose in view of the ruling I made yesterday. Anything else would be out of order today.

Mr. Heseltine: Would you rule on the point I put to you, Mr. Speaker, before the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) followed my point of order? I was putting to you, Mr. Speaker, that the Secretary of State was seeking leave to introduce a photograph in evidence in the House so that hon. Members might be invited to question the ruling that you gave yesterday. As the Government's motion in no way questions your ruling, Mr. Speaker, what possible virtue can there be in allowing the Secretary of State to produce evidence which must have that point behind it?

Mr. Speaker: Evidence that the Government put in the Library is their concern. My concern is that my ruling yesterday is not open to debate today.

Mr. Abse: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. As you have indicated, it was unfortunate if I addressed myself to you in a way which suggested that the motion sought to alter your decision. The motion seeks to relieve the House from the consequences of your decision. Therefore, is it not in order, proper and correct that all the evidence should be given to enable the House to come to a decision whether it should be relieved of the consequences? I hope that you will rule that the Secretary of State may continue to give the weight of evidence which we all require.

Mr. Speaker: What the Secretary of State and everyone else must do until an amendment has been proposed is to speak to the motion, which indicates to the House the steps that the Government believe should be taken arising out of my ruling yesterday. The House has to
decide whether it wishes to take those steps,

Mr. Robin Maxwell-Hyslop: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Something has happened which I have not known during the 15 years in which I have been a Member of the House. As well as the Secretary of State addressing the House, which is a verbal process, he is purporting to exhibit photographs to the House. If there are contrary photographs which the House ought to be able to see, for instance, a photograph of a ship called the "Key Victoria" at sea, as appears in the Financial Times this morning, what is the procedure whereby conflicting photographs can be circulated? Instead of confining ourselves to verbal statements, as has been the custom during my time in Parliament, we now have exhibited a photograph of visual effects. The Secretary of State held up the photograph in an endeavour to show it to hon. Members. Are hon. Members permitted to walk round the House with opposing photographs so that other hon. Members may see them?

Mr. Speaker: I hope that we can get back to the debate. Anyone who has any pictures may put them in the Library.

Mr. Varley: I have referred to the American Bureau of Shipping, which the hon. Member twice quoted——

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I raised with you earlier a point of order, and you subsequently expressed the hope that there will be no bogus points of order. If you feel that my point of order was bogus, of course, I withdraw it. When I went to the Library and the Vote Office, no photograph was available but it has just been delivered to me. The point of order was genuine when I raised it.

Mr. Speaker: I had no intention of treading on the hon. Gentleman's corns. I do not want to say whom I had in mind in case that provokes another point of order.

Mr. Varley: I have referred to the American Bureau of Shipping, which the hon. Member twice quoted——

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The words you uttered to the effect that anyone who had


photographs could place them in the Library were scarcely out of your mouth when a cascade of photographs arrived in the Chamber. That recalls the substantial point I made to you a few moments ago. If photographs are to be distributed through the House in the course of the debate they must not be confined to showing a ship when it is ashore but should also show it when it is performing the function of a ship on the water.

Mr. Speaker: I do not know how the pictures are distributed, but there is nothing disorderly about it. If the hon. Gentleman seeks to distribute some of his photographs, or if anyone else wishes to do so, let him do it. I suggest that we get on with the serious business.

Mr. Adley: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker——

Hon. Members: Name him.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall hear the hon. Gentleman's point of order, but I must tell the House that it is wrong to prevent orderly debate by continually raising points of order.

Mr. Adley: I am sorry to refer to my, earlier point of order, but will you please give a ruling, Mr. Speaker, if not now, after the Whitsun Recess, whether it is in order for the Government to put down on the Order Paper anything they wish—for instance, that non-members of the Labour Party on the Opposition side of the House may not vote or speak? Would you not be able to say that such a motion was out of order?

Mr. Speaker: I cannot rule on speculative issues. I deal with the motions on the Order Paper, and this motion is in order.

Mr. Varley: I was referring to the American Bureau of Shipping, which the hon. Member twice quoted in his support. The American Bureau of Shipping is not alone. Lloyd's Register of Shipping has been quoted in the controversy. Today's Financial Times says the following about it:
Lloyd's Register of Shipping would not be drawn into the argument yesterday, although Lloyd's regards ships and oil platforms as sufficiently different to warrant separate technical staff.

Mr. Norman Tebbit: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I draw your attention to the fact that the motion on the Order Paper reads:
in view of the serious consequences to the industries concerned and for those employed in them of further delay and uncertainty".
It also refers to
the application of any such Standing Orders
which it says, should be dispensed with. Admittedly with constant interruption, the Secretary of State has been speaking for some time but so far he has said nothing which is in any way relevant to that motion.

Mr. Speaker: Order. While I am glad of assistance at any time, if I found that the Minister was out of order I would pull him up.

Mr. Varley: I want to place before the House all the information that we have. We are entitled to do that. We are informed by the Inland Revenue that it does not regard self-elevating rigs as ships for capital allowance purposes and it has informed the General Council of British Shipping of this. It was never——

Mr. Onslow: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of what you have just said, the credulity of the House is being tested if the Inland Revenue view that self-propelling rigs are not ships is to be argued.

Mr. Speaker: Anything that disputes the ruling that I have given is not relevant. I have to tell the House that we are not discussing the question whether this was a ship or whether it was not a ship. [Interruption.] I am telling the House what we have to turn our minds to, and that is the steps that the Government propose to take arising out of my decision.

Mr. Varley: I can well understand——

Mr. William Ross: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You are in charge and exercise your authority over order in the House. You have stated that the motion is in order. Has anything been said by the Secretary of State which is out of order?

Mr. Speaker: He is getting very near. [Interruption.] Order. I do not need support when I am making statements. It becomes near to being out of order if the issue of this vessel, ship or barge is put


in question. I have given a ruling, and we have to decide whether the House will dispense with the Standing Orders.

Mr. Varley: rose——

Mrs. Judith Hart: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Would I be right in assuming that the Secretary of State has been trying to tell us that, on the absolutely accepted ruling that you have given, the motion on the Order Paper is to be understood and accepted in the light of the great technical problems that confront us?

Mr. Speaker: I suggest that we hear the Minister out.

Mr. Varley: If at any time——

Mr. William Ross: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I asked you whether you had heard anything from the Secretary of State that was out of order.

Mr. Speaker: Maybe the noise in the House prevented the right hon. Gentleman from hearing my answer, but I did answer him a moment ago.

Mrs. Margaret Thatcher: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have two specific points to raise. Is not the Secretary of State adducing the sort of evidence that should go to the examiners for them to assess it at a time when evidence from the other side can also be advanced and a decision made whether it is a hybrid Bill? It is not for the House to undertake that examination.
In all my years in the House I have never known photographs to be passed around by one side of the House without notice first being given. Is it now in order to use photographs as a means of debate?

Mr. Speaker: On the right hon. Lady's first question about examiners, I believe that the question of the ship is not one that can be settled here. I have given a ruling after long consideration. We have to decide what the House is to do arising out of that decision. I have not come up against the question of the circulation of photographs before, although this practice might have taken place without my knowing. I should like to consider it. The fewer changes that there are in our procedures, the better it is for orderly debate.

Mr. George Cunningham: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. We shall be in difficulties not only in the Minister's speech but in the speech of any hon. Member speaking later in the debate about exactly the point at which you have suggested that the Minister might be straying out of order. For the purposes of the rules of the House we must accept that that thing is a ship. You have so ruled. But may I put this to you, Mr. Speaker? It may be a ship for the purposes of the rules of the House—there is no doubt about that—but some of us might want to argue that in common sense, by the rules of the Inland Revenue or for other purposes relevant to whether we pass the motion, it might not be regarded as a ship—although not for the rules of the House. That would be a legitimate distiction for us to draw and it would be wholly relevant to the motion that we are being asked to consider.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Niceties of that sort are not acceptable. Anything that challenges my ruling yesterday will not be acceptable. The Government will make their case for the motion and it is irrelevant to argue that which has been decided on the question of the ship.

Mr. Varley: The Government are entitled to put their views and all the evidence that they have before the House. The question in dispute——

Mr. Ivor Clemitson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As I understand the situation, you have given a ruling that the Bill is prima facie a hybrid Bill. A prima facie ruling presumably means that somebody or other has finally to decide whether it is a hybrid Bill. Are you ruling that the Bill should go to the examiners for that final decision? If so, may I ask you which Standing Order is the basis for that reference?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman must be aware that I have given no such ruling. The House will decide, if the debate is allowed to continue, what procedure it intends to follow. I have given no other instructions.

Mr. Varley: All I am seeking to do is to give all the evidence to the House, and the House is entitled to have that evidence. The issue in dispute is the


meaning of paragraph 6 of Part II of Schedule 2. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I think that the Government are entitled to put those views before the House.

Mr. Patrick Mayhew: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Minister has now referred to the issue being in dispute. What can that be other than a challenge to your ruling?

Mr. Speaker: The issue in dispute before the House is the motion on the Order Paper, and no other.

Mr. Varley: There is other evidence that I want to give the House, and I think that I am entitled to give it. If you rule me out of order, Mr. Speaker, I shall of course accept your ruling, but I am certainly not taking rulings from the Opposition. If you at any time decide, Mr. Speaker, that anything I say is out of order, I shall observe your ruling straight away, but I will not be bullied by Opposition Members.
I have already referred to the fact that the Inland Revenue takes a similar view to that of the American Bureau of Shipping. These two authorities are not alone.

Mr. Onslow: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker——

Mr. Speaker: I shall hear this point of order, but I appeal to the House and to individual hon. Members who become anxious about whether the Minister is straying to trust my judgment in the matter, so that we may have fewer points of order and the speech may come to its conclusion.

Mr. Onslow: That was very much the point of order that I hoped to put to you, Mr. Speaker. [HON. MEMBERS: "Then sit down."] I feel sure that if the Minister cited any purported authorities which disagreed with your ruling he would be instantly and properly ruled out of order. I hope that he will be able to get to the motion, that the House can hear him on that, and that some of us can speak to it.

Mr. Varley: There is another piece of important information that I need to put to the House about this matter. It concerns the good faith of the last Conservative Government and members of it. The Industry Act 1972 distinguished be-

tween a ship and an offshore installation for eligibility for ship construction grants. The Act has the following definition:
 'mobile offshore installation' means any installation which is intended"—

Mr. Churchill: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is not everything we have heard from the Secretary of State this afternoon not only a hairline challenge but a direct challenge to your ruling yesterday?

Mr. Abse: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. As I understand it, the House must decide whether it will dispense with the existing Standing Orders. That is the issue. Therefore, surely we should know whether your ruling is based upon serious and weighty matters—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—or whether the unchallengeable ruling you have given is based on trivial matters. Surely the House is entitled to know the evidence to enable us to decide whether we should avoid the serious consequences.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is not correct. The House is not considering whether I was on good grounds.

Mr. Abse: I was not saying that, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: That is how it seemed to me.
What the House is considering is whether, in view of the ruling I gave yesterday—[Interruption.] Order. The House is considering the motion on the Order Paper. I must say this, and I hope that it will be hearkened to: anything that seeks to discuss the merits of whether the ship was a ship is a challenge to what I said yesterday. What we must deal with is the motion.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: On a point of order——

Mrs. Winifred Ewing: rose——

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Skinner, on a point of order.

Mrs. Ewing: rose——

Mr. Speaker: Order. I have called the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) on a point of order.

Mr. Skinner: You said yesterday, Mr. Speaker, in that supposedly historic ruling—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—that prima


fade the vessel was a ship. What we are doing today, I presume, is to listen to all the various comments and arguments from both sides. I have no doubt in my mind, either inside the Chamber or outside it, that my view about this matter if I had to give an opinion——

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is not required to give an opinion. I thought that he was raising a point of order. But for his information I can tell him that I did not mention the word "ship" in my ruling yesterday. I merely said that the Bill was prima facie a hybrid Bill. That is the ruling. The House is not discussing it now but is discussing its consequences.

Mr. E. Fernyhough: Further to that point of order——

Mr. Skinner: I was coming to my conclusion. I was saying that in my opinion——

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is not entitled in the middle of somebody else's speech to give his opinions. If he is raising a point of order, I am quite willing to deal with it, but I am not willing to allow hon. Members to rise just to express opinions when the Secretary of State is addressing the House.

Mr. Fernyhough: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it not clear that so far all that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has done is to show that when the Government commenced with the Bill they felt that it complied with every rule of the House, although yesterday you decided that it did not? My right hon. Friend is merely trying to indicate the steps which the Government took, and the advice which they took, before they made the decision that it was a Public Bill. Surely any man in the position of my right hon. Friend today is entitled to convey to the House all the steps he took to comply with the rules of the House so that the Bill would be in order.

Mr. Speaker: Of course, the right hon. Gentleman is quite right. That is in order. I call the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mrs. Ewing), and then I hope that we can return to the debate.

Mrs. Winifred Ewing: My point of order, Mr. Speaker, is this: is there not a lack of order in this House and would you not advise 11 of our faithful Members of this Chamber to attend a much more important occasion than this, namely the Scottish National Party annual conference at Motherwell?

Hon. Members: No.

Mr. Speaker: Order. That shows the extent to which we are becoming disorderly.

Mr. Varley: I need make only one other point at this time before passing on to some other matters which the House wants to hear. That is the question of the 1972 Industry Act, which is absolutely relevant to the subject under discussion. That Act defines a mobile offshore installation as meaning:
any installation which is intended for underwater exploitation of mineral sources or exploration with a view to such exploitation and can move by water from place to place without major dismantling or modification, whether or not it has its own motive power; 'ship' includes every description of vessel used in navigation".
I have to tell the House that under the Tory Industry Act the "Key Victoria" was not awarded a construction grant as a ship. Instead Marathon applied for and received construction grants for it as an offshore installation, and it was the Conservatives' own Act, the Act put through by those same hon. Gentlemen who have been spluttering and howling me down, and howling down my right hon. Friend the Lord President like a gang of illiterate yahoos——

Mr. Tom King: rose——

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Varley: All this would be cause for satire from the pen of a modern Swift if the consequences were not so inherently disastrous for both the aircraft and the shipbuilding industries and for hundreds of thousands of workers whose livelihoods depend upon them. Under private ownership the aircraft industry has not brought forward a single new civil project in more than two years. The HS 146 would be dead today had it not been for the holding contract placed by this Government. Increasingly in recent years shareholders of existing companies have avoided their responsibilities for the future work of these com-


panies and have expected the Government to provide the necessary finance.
The Department of Industry currently has before it three proposals of this kind where the companies expect the Government to provide all the funds. In anticipation of nationalisation, things are beginning to move at last. Scottish Aviation has been offered some of the RAF Jetstreams to modify at Prestwick for possible United States sales. That would give new confidence to the workers there. The Organising Committee for British Aerospace at long last brought Hawker Siddeley and the British Aircraft Corporation together, and last week held constructive talks with their French counterparts about possible collaboration on the Airbus and HS 146.
If this Bill does not proceed rapidly, the important relationships being built up between British Aerospace and potential European partners will evaporate. The nationalised French airframe industry will lose confidence in us as a partner and will turn firmly and irrevocably to the Americans. Today's diverting parliamentary ploy could mean the dole queue before long for tens of thousands of skilled British aircraft workers and could mean Britain declining into being no more than a client sub-contractor. Without speedy nationalisation the stakes are as high as that, and no hon. Member can turn his back on those facts.
But if the delay in nationalisation faces the aircraft industry with a crisis, it faces the shipbuilding industry with a catastrophe. The shipbuilders know it. That is why so many of them have begged me to get the industry into public ownership as quickly as possible. Hon. Members opposite know it, too. That is why so many hon. Members on the opposite side of the House, while opposing this Bill publicly, have privately been lobbying me to get the headquarters of British Shipbuilders into their own area. Indeed, the hon. Member for the City of Chester (Mr. Morrison), in his capacity as Chairman of the North-West Group of Conservative MPs, has written formally to me pressing Merseyside as the headquarters of British Shipbuilders.

Mr. Peter Morrison: Does the right hon. Gentleman not realise that my hon. Friends in the North-

West area and I would be deserting our constituents' interest if we did not push for the headquarters of British Shipbuilders to be on Merseyside? Does he also realise that, for the sake of our constituents and those involved in the shipbuilding industry, we are totally and utterly opposed to the nationalisation of that industry?

Mr. Varley: Of course I agree entirely that the hon. Gentleman would not be acting in the interests of his constituents if he were not asking for the headquarters of British Shipbuilders to be placed on Merseyside. But I will say to him that he will be acting against the interests of his constituents if he votes against this motion tonight. In another letter, the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North (Sir W. Elliott), a former Vice-Chairman of the Tory Party, has eloquently stated the case for the Tyne.

Sir William Elliott (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North): Would the Secretary of State accept that the reason for my writing that letter was an approach by the North-East Development Council, which body told me that it had been strongly suggested to it that, despite the facts before the House, a decision had already been taken to establish the headquarters at Merseyside? I was asked to impress upon the right hon. Gentleman that the biggest concentration of shipbuilding and advisory services in the country was on Tyneside, which I told him. But I violently oppose nationalisation of the industry.

Mr. Varley: What the hon. Gentleman has said will be noted in the North-East, too. Members of the Conservative Party have written to me. I have the hon. Gentleman's letter in my hand. I will not bore the House by reading it out. But today I have had another letter from Admiral Sir Anthony Griffin, Chairman of the Organising Committee for British Shipbuilders. He says:
I am writing on behalf of the Organising Committee to assure you of our unanimous support for the Government's efforts to bring the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill quickly into law.

Several Hon. Members: rose——

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Varley: I am very surprised that hon. Gentlemen on that side should scoff at that letter and scoff at someone such as Sir Anthony Griffin, who has given service to both Governments when Controller of the Navy and was in fact appointed by the then Conservative Government to that post. It is utterly disgraceful that they should laugh and jeer in that way. Conservative Members who laugh should be utterly ashamed of themselves—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. This Chamber believes in the right of free speech. Even when hon. Members disagree with what they hear, they have to listen.

Mr. Varley: Admiral Griffin went on to say the following—[Interruption.] It is important that the House should have this information, and I do not know what Conservative Members are frightened of. He said:
Our wide-ranging examination of the industry during the past five months leads us firmly to the view that nationalisation offers the best chance of creating a stable, profitable, competitive shipbuilding industry, and that any further delay in achieving this objective would be seriously damaging.
That is the considered statement of Sir Anthony Griffin.
The world recession and the oil crisis have created a famine in orders which has brought our shipbuilding and ship-repairing industries to the verge of disaster. I say frankly, as one who has to face a new crisis in the shipbuilding industry on practically every working day, that we are hard put to it to hold the line. Only a co-ordinated strategy backed by the workers in the industry can save the situation.
The Organising Committee for British Shipbuilders has made a fine start. It must be given a chance to get on with the job quickly—otherwise there will be yards that may not live through next year.
It is my duty solemnly to warn the House that after six months in Committee any further delay in the passage of this Bill could deal a death blow to the prospects of the shipbuilding and shiprepairing industries in some of the areas of most intolerable unemployment. I refer to Tyneside, Wearside, Teesside, Merseyside and Clydeside. I deliberately mention Clydeside because I understand

that the SNP has decided to vote against our motion.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: rose——

Mr. Varley: No, I cannot give way. The SNP will be fully aware of its responsibilities.

Mrs. Winifred Ewing: We want an election.

Mr. Varley: Some 20 per cent. of the shipbuilding industry lies in Scotland, and some of the shipyards which face most imminent crisis lie in Scotland. Any delay in the passage of this Bill could mean the dole queue for thousands of Scottish shipbuilding workers.

Mr. Gordon Wilson: In view of the fact that the effect of nationalisation and centralisation will mean a loss of thousands of jobs, what case can the Minister put forward for saving shipbuilding jobs in Scotland when the present Bill is intended to centralise the control of the shipbuilding industry elsewhere and to take that control outside Scotland, without any Government policy aimed at securing that shipbuilding orders are placed with industry in Scotland?

Mr. Varley: The Bill is not a centralising measure. It aims at bringing about a nationalised strategy for the shipbuilding industry. The SNP carries a heavy responsibility. Already hundreds of telegrams are pouring in. The shop stewards of the Clydebank Engineering Shop Stewards Committee urge the SNP members to take their responsibilities seriously. That is also the attitude of the Clydeside Shop Stewards Committee.
I understand that SNP Members leave for their annual conference shortly and that they intend to vote against the Bill. If they vote for the Conservative motion and against the Government motion, they will bear the responsibility of throwing thousands of ship builders out of a job. If that happens, it will be held against them for ever.
This debate is not about a jolly jape or some small parliamentary strategem. It relates to two vital industries, That is the reason why I have no hesitation in urging the House to support this motion and


to sustain the hopes of hard-pressed communities and tens of thousands of workers who are profoundly anxious about the future.

Mr. Martin Flannery: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have received a sheaf of telegrams from the organised workers of Sheffield. I hope that it is in order to place those telegrams in the Bag at the back of your Chair.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that that is not a point of order.

4.37 p.m.

Mr. John Peyton: I beg to move to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
this House endorses Mr. Speaker's ruling of 26th May 1976, which confirmed that the rights of private citizens might be affected by the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill, and considers that the normal procedures to defend such rights as laid down in Standing Orders should be followed.
The Secretary of State for Industry has made a remarkable speech—particularly in one respect. I think that the only attempt to explain the contents, meaning and reasoning of the Government's motion was made by you, Mr. Speaker. I hardly heard the Secretary of State for Industry refer to the motion or say anything about what will happen as a consequence of it.
At one stage the Secretary of State said that nobody was seeking to challenge your ruling. He went on to make it fairly clear that what he and his colleagues were seeking to do was to dispose of the matter tidily in the nearest wastepaper basket. He then kindly said that he was not impugning anybody's good faith. In present circumstances, nobody's good faith is in question today except that of the Government.
The Secretary of State then produced a phrase which deserves to be characterised as the phrase of the debate—namely, the concept of "hairline hybridity". My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) was heard to mutter that it was "such a small baby".
We then had a helpful intervention by the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr.

Abse), who made it clear that the one thing he was anxious to do—and, indeed, thought he was in order in doing—was to debate your ruling, Mr. Speaker. The hon. Gentleman used words such as these: "We want to inquire whether your ruling is based on serious or weighty evidence."

Mr. Abse: Since we are debating a motion to decide whether we should take action to deal with the serious consequences which flow from Mr. Speaker's ruling, does not the right hon. Gentleman think that it is right for all the evidence relating to the matter to be placed, as the Secretary of State has placed it, before the House?

Mr. Peyton: I am content with the words I used, which came out of the hon. Gentleman's speech, that we were seeking to inquire whether Mr. Speaker's ruling was based upon serious or weighty evidence. Whatever else we are doing, that is precisely what we are not meant to be doing today.
In order to enliven the debate, photographs were circulated. I very much hope, Mr. Speaker, that you will follow up the serious point made subsequently by a number of my hon. Friends as to the circulation of photographs——

Mr. Robert Hughes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Everything that the right hon. Gentleman has said so far has been about whether points of order were points of order and whether you were dealing with them properly. Surely he should get down to the subject.

Mr. Peyton: There are times when one is infinitely grateful to hon. Gentlemen opposite, and there are times when their advice is not quite as valuable as it may seem to them to be. On this occasion, I must say that I can get on without them.

The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. John Morris): Get on with it.

Mr. Peyton: I have all the time in the world. I quite realise that the occupants of the Government Front Bench and others want to get their own back, and I am not in the least bothered if they wish to do that. We wish only to conduct a proper parliamentary debate. That does not worry me.
The point to which I was addressing myself—it is a perfectly reasonable one—is that sooner or later we must have some settled ruling as to whether it is in order for the Government, or anybody else for that matter, to circulate photographs without notice and consultation.
The right hon. Gentleman, at the height of his anger——

Mr. Fernyhough: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it not correct to say that my right hon. Friend is prepared to how any photograph but that if a demand is made that the photographs should be laid upon the Table he will comply with that?

Mr. Speaker: Order. Perhaps I can clear this matter up by referring again to "the good book". It is quite clear that hon. Members have been permited to display articles—but not weapons—to illustrate an argument in a speech. Mr. Peyton.

Mr. Peyton: rose——

The Minister of State, Department of Industry (Mr. Gerald Kaufman): Why did you not say that before?

Mr. Speaker: Order. May I say to the Minister that I take a very poor view of anyone who makes remarks at me when I am in the Chair. The reason why I did not say that before was that I did not know it until I looked up "Erskine May".

Mr. Kaufman: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. If I have offended you in any way, I fully and unreservedly withdraw my remarks.

Mr. Speaker: I am very much obliged to the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Ron Thomas: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As one who represents an aircraft workers' constituency, may I say how appalled I am that thousands of jobs are at stake and that all that the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) can discuss is whether——

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must know that those are points which he can make if he has the advantage of being called in the debate.

Mr. Peyton: If I may say so, Mr. Speaker, with great respect, these seem to be heavily camouflaged points of order.
The Secretary of State made much of the fact that delay in nationalisation would cost jobs and so on. He should read the Press today, particularly the article in The Guardian, which makes it quite clear that in the opinion of that newspaper at any rate—an opinion which I fully endorse—nobody would be the poorer if the Bill were to die tonight.
The right hon. Gentleman, at a loss, then criticised my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Mr. Morrison) for having said that his constituency might derive some benefit from nationalisation if the Bill were passed. I do not think anyone can seriously suggest that there was anything at all wrong in what my hon. Friend had done. We were then told about Sir Anthony Griffin—poor man; I think he will have an unhappy time in the future now that he has been dragged in to support the right hon. Gentleman's case.
The real point which characterised the Secretary of State's remarks was his total failure to deal with the motion which he himself moved on behalf of the Government. This debate could well have sunk into a competition to see who could find the best precedent. I am advised that there are no precedents whatever for the situation in which we now find ourselves. Our concern with precedent is not to find either an excuse for the Government's conduct or condemnation for it in circumstances which are more or less comparable, because in my belief there are no such circumstances. We have some concern for precedent, however, because one might well be giving a respectability to this kind of conduct which would help it in future, which we would deem reprehensible and odious.
Rules are necessary to govern all forms of human activity, otherwise one is left with the attractive statement that might is right. Rules are particularly necessary to govern the activities of the strong, and by that I mean Governments. Indeed, much of the history of the Labour Party has been concerned with the struggle to bring rich and powerful people and interests within the limitations of known rules. When that does not suit the Labour Party, however, as with yesterday's ruling, a motion is put forward without a moment's hesitation to sweep that ruling aside. No pause whatever was


taken by the Leader of the House to consider the reactions of Parliament, Press or public. The Government proceeded headlong in their determination to get their measure, no matter what the cost in terms of violations of the rules of this place.
Parliament, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said yesterday, is not and should not be an instrument of government. It is a source of government and it is a means of checking the Government. It has, or used to have, great powers for that purpose over money and legislation. But of the two Chambers that constitute Parliament, one has been virtually filleted and the other has had its wings clipped by a series of procedural devices—devices against which none has been more vehement than the present Leader of the House.
Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will recognise these words:
I say quite seriously that I think that when this House is debating as it is today, or as it claims to be debating today, the procedures of Parliamentary democracy, hon. Gentlemen, and even more right hon. Gentlemen, on both sides of the House should recognise that Parliamentary democracy is being debilitated by many of the operations which they conduct and by many of the methods by which they conduct the House of Commons."—[Official Report, 6th March 1961, Vol. 636, c 154–5.]
Those were the words of the right hon. Gentleman on 6th March 1961.

Mr. Tom King: He has come a long way since then.

Mr. Peyton: Indeed. The House of Commons has not only been greatly curtailed in its powers; it has been dwarfed by the huge growth of modern government. My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop), in raising with such skill the point that he did, was not making any tricky use of rules. He was discharging his duty in ensuring that a Government invested with a great panoply of power did not cut corners with a tricky and unpleasant measure.

Mr. Robert Hughes: rose——

Mr. Peyton: No, I have given way quite enough.

Mr. Robert Hughes: On this point——

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): Order. Is the right hon. Gentleman giving way?

Mr. Peyton: Very well.

Mr. Andrew Faulds: Go on, Bob, do the job for him.

Mr. Robert Hughes: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall the Northern Ireland Act of 1972, which was brought in at less than 24 hours' notice and passed through all its stages in one day to have the effect of setting aside a decision of the High Court of Northern Ireland and declaring that the law was to be regarded as it always had been regarded since 1920?

Mr. Peyton: Do I really need to tell the hon. Member that whereas that was not a contentious measure, this one is?

Mr. Robert Hughes: That is not what the Tories have been saying.

Mr. Peyton: There is no concealment about this. This measure, in our view, is a bad one. It will subject other industries, quite unnecessarily, to the thraldom of nationalisation. Those other industries will follow in the wake of the ones already in State ownership, which have proved millstones around the neck of the national economy.

Mr. Kevin McNamara: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Peyton: No, I have given way enough.

Mr. McNamara: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way on this point?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. If the right hon. Gentleman does not give way, the hon. Member must resume his seat.

Mr. Peyton: The hon. Member interrupted me at just the point when I was coming to another interruption in this matter, that of Sir Barnett Cocks. Sir Barnett Cocks, lately retired as the Clerk of this House, has seen fit to intervene in this dispute with the judgment that Mr. Speaker's first ruling was right and that his second one was therefore wrong. I should like to take this opportunity of saying that I think that the Chair in this place and the Clerks of the House have a very difficult task indeed, but I cannot


believe that under any Government their tasks would be made easier by the repeated intervention of people who have had great knowledge but who can no longer be informed about the necessary details.
In the view of all of us on the Opposition side, my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton has done a notable service to Parliament.

Mr. Varley: What about freedom now?

Mr. Peyton: What about freedom yesterday, when, at an impressive ceremony in Westminster Hall, the Prime Minister spoke in moving terms of freedom and the great charter of our liberties? I wish that the Prime Minister would get hold of that speech and read it again now, and ask himself whether or not he is acting up to the high principles that he there enunciated.
It would be quite wrong to pick only upon the Leader of the House and say that he is solely responsible for this shabby manoeuvre. The Government as a whole are guilty; the Government as a whole must take responsibility. But it is particularly the Leader of the House who must take especial blame. He cannot have had much satisfaction from even a cursory reading of the Press this morning. The article "Guilty Man" in the Daily Telegraph—[Interruption.] It is always interesting to note the total derision with which any quotation is greeted from any journal with which Labour Members do not agree.
The article says:
Mr. Foot has not till recently been thought of as one of these. His devotion to and respect for Parliament and its procedures has been often and fervently proclaimed. All the greater then is the shock and sense of betrayal when, in his zeal to see the aircraft and shipbuilding industries nationalised, he is prepared to 'get around' what the Speaker has ruled, to throw standing orders out of the window and. in effect, to reduce MPs of all parties to mere rubber-stamp cyphers".
The article then goes on to comment on how rickety and frail are the structures and fabrics which protect our liberties—[Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman is perfectly well aware of this, even if some of his more loud-mouthed colleagues are prepared to ignore it.
I am sure that any mention of The Times will also—[Laughter.]—there we

are, as always—elicit the same derision from the Labour Party, whose members do not like any view that is expressed against their interests. Only those who agree with them are right. There is a quotation that I still mean to make from today's leading article in The Times:
The measure is ideologically inspired, not urgent, primitive in its ideas of State intervention in industry, unwanted by the mass of the people, a matter for private apology by some ministers and Labour MPs. By steaming on with it the Government have acted as if they had behind them a clear electoral mandate, when in fact they are a minority government, all along and very much so in terms of votes and now in a minority in the House of Commons also.

Hon. Members: Now give us the Daily Mail.

Mr. Peyton: Perhaps that would be better. I was about to quote a similar item from the Scotsman, but as I imagine that would give Labour Members equal pain, let me go to a better source, to someone who has made this place echo to the sound of his acclaimed convictions. It is the right hon. Gentleman himself:
I have respect for the history of this House. There is nothing reprehensible in people recalling that some of the liberties of the people of this country enshrined in this House go back not merely to the conflicts of the seventeenth century, which will certainly apply to many of the matters with which we have to deal—the power over taxation which resides, or is still to reside, in this House—but to the controversies which prevailed in the House of Commons during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. If people say to me that all these are remote, old-fashioned ideas, I reply that they are as up-to-date as the ideas that brought the Labour Party into being".—[Official Report, 17th February 1972; Vol. 831, c. 741.]

Mr. Fernyhough: rose——

Mr. Peyton: No.

Mr. Fernyhough: rose——

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The right hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough) knows the rules of the House.

Mr. Fernyhough: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry gave way a score of times. I think it is very cheap of the right hon. Gentleman to be so mean when he is quoting my right hon. Friend the Leader of the


House, when at the time that speech was made the right hon. Gentleman denied every principle that——

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Chair has enough trouble, as has already been pointed out, without having the additional difficulty of ordering Members to give way to someone who wants to intervene.

Mr. Peyton: The right hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough) only does damage to the quite good reputation that he otherwise enjoys. It is a pity that he should be trying to make another intervention of this kind this afternoon.
This is the motion of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House, and therefore we are entitled to remind him of views that he once most strongly held. In a debate concerning the European Communities Bill, the right hon. Gentleman said:
What the Government and the Prime Minister, in particular, are doing is to show full-hearted contempt for the democratic processes of this country; full-hearted contempt for the normal legislative processes of this House of Commons. The stain will remain indelible on the right hon. Gentleman for ever."—[Official Report, 2nd May 1972; Vol. 836, c. 235.]
I should like to end—[Interruption.] I have no intention of prolonging my remarks, so long as I am not persuaded to do so by those hobgoblins on the Government Benches. They have it in their power to do this, though not to persuade me of the reason of their case.
I should like to end, Mr. Deputy Speaker, with these words:
 'I should like to have an honest job again.' This business of being Leader of the House does not suit him at all."—[Official Report, 25th January 1962; Vol. 652, c. 454.]
Those words were spoken by the right hon. Gentleman, who is now Leader of the House, of the then Leader of the House. They are back again alive to haunt him today.

5.4 p.m.

Mrs. Judith Hart: The primary purpose on this occasion is to discuss the parliamentary issue before us. I begin, perhaps a little unexpectedly, by congratulating the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) and the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) on their very genuine and effective piece

of research and their very well carried through parliamentary performance. It is a real success for them, and we should not dispute that. What they have done is to prove that a mistake has been made by the Government in defining the character of a Bill, and I genuinely and sincerely congratulate them.
I certainly accept—and, as far as I know, everyone on the Government side, certainly my right hon. Friends, totally accept—Mr. Speakers' ruling. I say that at the outset in order to set the context of the rest of my remarks.
The question is, having accepted Mr. Speaker's ruling, what is now the most sensible way to deal with the problem that then arises? That is the parliamentary issue before us.
It ought not to be seen, in the strict sense of the word, as a normal political issue. It is a matter of the way in which the sensible Members of this House of Commons address themselves to a genuine problem. Whatever may be the views of many hon. Members on the Opposite Benches about the merits of the Bill on which this question has arisen, the issue before us is the House of Commons issue of how we now deal with the consequences of Mr. Speaker's ruling.
As Mr. Speaker has told us himself, we are the masters of what we do. This obviously is unchallengeable. Therefore, if the House of Commons this evening decides to take a certain course of action, as I hope it will, and accepts the motion that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has moved, that will be totally within the prerogative of the House.
We have the right to determine how we deal with the situation. There is nothing improper, no threat to freedom, no threat to democracy, involved in this House exercising its right to act upon the motion put before it today. This will represent our considered, sensible method of dealing with the essentially parliamentary problem with which we are now confronted as a result of Mr. Speaker's ruling.
The problem of hybridity is always a terrifying one. I remember that in Cabinet and in Cabinet committees, whenever it was suggested that a proposal to legislate might involve the problem of hybridity, everyone took fright. People went white and cold, and said "We cannot possibly


cope with it." It is a very terrifying problem when it emerges.
About 14 years ago—I am indebted for this recollection to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Kelvingrove (Mr. Carmichael)—Mr Emrys Hughes moved from these Benches, I think in a Ten-Minute Bill, a motion to nationalise The Times. He was told by the Government of the day that it would cost far too much, because it would mean having a Private Bill. He was told that it would cost about £200,000 to go through all the procedures, but that if he chose he could quite simply, without any cost, move to nationalise the whole of the newspapers.
I also remember serving on a Committee dealing with a Private Bill, the Esso Petroleum Bill. I am very familiar with the perfectly correct exercise of Private Bill procedure, under which private individuals and companies affected by legislation have their rights within this House of Commons. I am familiar with all of that.
Somewhere along the line, with this Bill—I suppose it was before its introduction—some officials responsible for giving advice made some kind of mistake. Clearly, all hon. Members appreciate that, in all fairness. We know that somewhere there was a mistake. It must have occurred before First Reading, because that is when the whole question of subjecting a Bill to the Public Examiner arises. The mistake went through that stage, before the Bill was given its First and Second Readings. We cannot really be surprised that it went thereafter through its 58 Committee Sittings without the mistake being discovered, since it had not been discovered at the earlier stages, when it should have been.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Is the right hon. Lady seized of the point that, however carefully the Bill is read through, by clerks or anyone else, reading through the Bill does not tell a person whether there is a new ship in the course of construction in a given shipyard on a given day, or how many thousand tons had or has not been produced in a shipyard? It is these facts, external to a Bill, which cannot be comprehended by merely reading it but which either make it a hybrid Bill or do not.

Mrs. Hart: I accept that. I am not putting any particular responsibility on any particular group of officials. All I am saying is that, somewhere along the line, full account was not taken of the circumstances that the hon. Gentleman has effectively drawn attention to. He has been able to discover it. Presumably, it should have been discovered at an earlier stage but was not. That is all I am saying.
There are precedents. I was discussing with my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) the Rolls-Royce (Purchase) Act 1971, which was put through this House in 24 hours. It was a hybrid Bill and it was put through by the Conservative Government. We did not object, because it was clearly necessary and urgent. One should not regard the question of hybridity and what the House does about it as totally unacceptable to the House. In certain circumstances, as Mr. Speaker has said, the House is the master of what it does.
In the case of the Rolls-Royce Bill, we decided that we were masters of what we did and that that Bill should go through, no matter that it had implications that could have been challenged by us, as the then Opposition, as the hon. Member for Tiverton has challenged this Bill. I am not arguing the merits of the Rolls-Royce Act; we supported it. I merely say that circumstances can arise in this House when it is necessary for the House to decide what is the sensible and best procedure to adopt in relation to a new problem and a new situation.
As I understood him, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry was trying, valiantly amid all the excitement, to say that, while the Government accepted Mr. Speaker's ruling, the circumstances in which the mistake had been made about the hybrid nature of the Bill were understandable. He tried to explain the complications and the complexities—indeed, had there not been complexities, had there not been a difficult question of interpretation, surely the hon. Member for Henley and the hon. Member for Tiverton would not now be receiving the congratulations of their colleagues on the cleverness that they have demonstrated in discovering the mistake. If it were a simple matter, the mistake would have been discovered long ago.
So what are the complications? When is a vessel a ship? When is it not a ship? One almost feels oneself in the province of idealism in philosophy—I see a table, so there is a table: I see a ship, so there is a ship. The key definitions come from the American Bureau of Shipping and the Merchant Shipping Act 1894. My right hon. Friend has made reference also to Lloyds, the Inland Revenue and the 1972 Industry Act. One also notes that the whole procedure under discussion concerning hybridity was established by Mr. Speaker's ruling in 1962.
In 1962, and certainly in 1894, this House was not familiar with the precise technological ingredients of oil rigs—that I think we can all accept. I do not believe that when the 1894 Act was going through the House there was a deep and profound discussion of when was a ship a ship and when was a vessel with a hull a ship—or, at any rate, the words that the hon. Member for Tiverton gave us on Tuesday. I cannot believe that these were matters of full consideration when the 1894 Act was going through the House.
Nor can I regard it as reasonable to assume that Mr. Speaker's ruling in 1962 bore in mind the certainty that his ruling would be applied about 14 years later to a situation of oil rigs, of which we in Great Britain then had no experience whatever.

Mr. Tom King: The right hon. Lady's submission and the Secretary of State's submission about the 1972 Act are irrelevant, because this Bill itself provides the key definition. Schedule 2, paragraph 6 specifically says
In this Part of the Schedule …
and then defines what a ship is. Section 12 of the 1972 Act says
In this Part of this Act …
and then gives a definition. There is a distinction between the categories. The Government have set their own definition in the Bill. We do not need to go back to 1894 or 1972.

Mrs. Hart: I am certain that the hon. Gentleman is aware that definitions tend to move on from previous definitions into a new Bill unless there are clear reasons for doing otherwise. All T am suggesting is that the definitions which have been

involved in Mr. Speaker's ruling are scarcely sanctified by tradition, history or test cases. The new ruling poses a new situation which relates to the new technological character of certain vessels used in the oil rig industry. It is a new situation. Indeed, the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) said that there is no precedent. There are no comparable circumstances. He himself agrees that it is a new situation. We are not, in what we decide to do tonight, throwing overboard traditions or precedents which have previously been set by the House in relation to a similar situation, because there has not been a similar situation in the past. The right hon. Gentleman himself said it—no precedent, no comparable circumstances.

Mr. Peyton: What I did say was that what we do tonight might set a perfectly odious precedent for the future and excuse the most unpleasant conduct in the future.

Mrs. Hart: I take the point, but I suppose that the most we would be doing tonight in accepting the motion would be saying "On the whole we had better get a rather better definition of what a ship is in the new oil age." We would also be saying "The circumstances of this Bill are such that we feel that the House in all good common sense would be ill-advised to throw the Bill back to its beginning and waste those 58 Committee Sittings and the rest."
The eccentricities involved in this situation are, first, that the definitions on which we have been resting have been obscure and unrelated to modern technological developments, and therefore it is understandable that things may have gone a little wrong and that the hon. Member for Tiverton has been able to catch the Government out. Secondly, the definition used is apparently an American phrase because the Americans are more familiar with oil rigs. Thirdly,—and this is fairly unprecedented—the Bill has already gone through 58 Committee Sittings and its hybridity was not challenged at the correct point in time, namely, before Second Reading.
The fourth eccentricity is that the situation centres around one company—Marathon. I am not sure whether the House is aware of developments at Marathon during the last two or three


weeks. I do not produce these arguments as being relevant to the procedural and legal question, but they are part of the background that should be considered by sensible people who are trying to find the right answer to this situation.
On 11th May the Financial Times reported that the Chairman of Marathon had told shareholders that the company would have to cut employment in the yard unless it could negotiate new orders in the next four months. This caused great concern in Scotland. The Scottish National Party is, of course, totally un-concerned about this. It is concerned only with elections, not jobs on Clyde-side. Some of us received a telegram today saying that all the Clydeside shop stewards have contacted the leader of the Scottish National Party demanding support for the nationalisation Bill. It is signed by a shop steward of Govan Shipbuilders.
On 13th May there were discussions between the shop stewards, the workers, and Marathon, and I now quote from a report in the Scotsman:
And at Marathon in Clydebank shop stewards were given an assurance that the president of Marathon had been misinterpreted at the company's annual general meeting in Houston on Tuesday when he stated that the yard would close in January.
The stewards were told that there are no plans to close the yard and Clydebank executives are negotiating for work to keep the yard in business when their two current orders run out early next year.
It goes on to say:
At Marathon, the management said yesterday that they were looking at not only oilrig orders but other kinds of steel fabricating to keep the yard occupied beyond January.
Today I had a telephone conversation with the shop stewards at Marathon and I now have an up-to-date picture of the position there in terms of prospects and employment. The company has not yet succeeded in negotiating any new orders. The two oil rigs under construction will be completed by the end of this year. There are active negotiations going on possibly for repair and conversion jobs, which I think are unlikely to involve a vessel or ship as defined here.

Mr. Tebbit: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We are having some

difficulty in making sure that all that is said relates closely to the matter. You will be aware that there is no proposal in the Bill—nor has the Secretary of State mentioned any proposal—to include the Marathon yards in this nationalisation measure. Therefore they cannot be among those yards which, in the opinion of the Government and in terms of the motion on the Order Paper, are gravely concerned by any uncertainty. Therefore, the right hon. Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) is introducing matters that are extraneous to the terms of both the motion and the Bill—unless, of course, the Secretary of State is proposing to bring Marathon into the schedule of companies for nationalisation——

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I appreciate the point. I was allowing the right hon. Lady to make just this reference and I was about to conclude that if she developed it to any great extent it would be, strictly speaking, out of order.

Mrs. Hart: Of course I accept that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. But it seemed to me that since the whole pivot of the dispute, which followed Mr. Speaker's ruling, arose from a vessel being constructed at Marathon, there was some relevance. Perhaps I can finalise the matter by saying that if no further orders are negotiated for Marathon in the next four or five weeks there will be a very difficult situation in the next two or three months. That is the point, and the outstanding eccentricity of this whole situation.
If the present Bill cannot complete its progress by the House taking the opportunity to accept the motion tonight, the very incident which has created the problem of hybridity conceivably could be a good deal less relevant or totally irrelevant in a few months' time. This matter should be considered against the background of the employment needs of the shipbuilding industry, particularly that part of the industry with which I am most familiar, more so than members of the Scottish National Party—Clydeside.
If we are concerned about employment, and the need not to insist that this Bill goes back to the beginning, if the problem that has caused our concern this evening involves a firm whose search for orders is taking them into fields other than the construction of vessels, and if there is


some shadow of doubt as to how far this firm might need Government assistance in future to preserve employment on Clydeside, we should be sensible about this motion now. If we are sensible—and sometimes we allow ourselves to be so—we are bound to conclude that in accepting the motion before us today we are not challenging any fundamental democratic rights of individuals or private companies. We are not seeking to change the constitutional processes of this House. What we are seeking to do is to find a rational way through an unpredicted, unprecedented situation. Therefore, I hope that we will accept the motion tonight.

5.28 p.m.

Mr. Grimond: I am glad to speak after the right hon. Lady for Lanark (Mrs. Hart), although I am advised that her description of the Rolls-Royce Bill as hybrid is not accurate.
We all agree that it is the duty of Back Benchers in all parts of the House to scrutinse, check and criticise the Government. In my view this has never been more necessary that it is now.
Also, it is generally agreed that a mistake was made in this case by the Government. No one has suggested that the Opposition brought us into this situation by unwarranted and destructive tactics.

Mr. Fernyhough: rose——

Mr. Grimond: I shall give way later. The fundamental point is that the Government are changing the rules under which legislation is considered by the House, and they are doing so half-way through. There may be a case for changing the rules of the House in the light of new technological developments. Perhaps they should be looked at again. But it is totally indefensible to change them when legislation is half-way through, just for the convenience of the Government, and against bitter opposition of other parties in the House.
Further, we are changing the rules in a way that may affect the rights of individuals outside this House. That is a fundamental point. We are setting a dangerous precedent. The House should focus its attention on that.

Mr. Fernyhough: I think that the right hon. Gentleman drew a bad analogy in referring to Rolls-Royce. The whole of

Rolls-Royce was not nationalised. The car-making sector was left in private hands.

Mr. Grimond: I am greatly obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. I give way to him on the Rolls-Royce point, if he is right.

Mr. Robert Hughes: Does the right hon. Gentleman remember the Education Act 1973, which was put forward by the Conservatives and which sought, in the light of a defect shown up by the High Court in Scotland, to provide that the situation should revert to what it had been in 1965? That Bill affected the rights of individuals but it went through without objection because everyone agreed with it. All that the right hon. Gentleman is saying is that since he and others disagree with this Bill, it is right to devise an ingenious method of stopping it.

Mr. Grimond: All I can tell the hon. Gentleman is that my party disagreed with the 1973 Act. The Government are acting like the footballer who is sent off. First, he says that he thinks the referee is wrong. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Hon. Members may disagree, but it is difficult to justify circulating a picture of the oil rig except as a method of criticising the ruling of the Chair. The footballer then says that he will not leave the field, but will remain until he can convene a meeting to change the rules. That would be unacceptable in football, and it is unacceptable in more serious matters in this House.
It is wrong that a majority in this House should have the right to change rules that are designed to protect minorities, ordinary Members and members of the public. It is damaging when there is a widespread disposition throughout the country, among various groups of people, to think that the law should he bent or altered to suit their particular needs at a particular time.
We are told that the Government have a mandate. They do not have a mandate; they have 38 per cent. of the votes, and they should take note of that. We have been told also that it will be disastrous if the Bill is not passed at once. All Governments, however, tell us that all their business is vital to the nation. That is the common excuse when they want to force something through. This


legislation, however, could not be on the statute book for many weeks yet. There is a grave situation facing all industries, not only shipbuilding. The Government can take powers under existing legislation to help the shipyards. This nationalisation Bill is not necessary for assisting them.
I hope that it was noted at Question Time that the Prime Minister, with great honesty, said that there would be rationalisation in the shipbuilding industry. The idea that everyone in the industry will have his job guaranteed by nationalisation is untrue. We have only to study the history of the steel industry. Nationalisation of the Scottish steel industry has not meant a great increase in it there; neither has it prevented unemployment.
I do not complain that Governments behave in a doctrinaire fashion. People are perfectly entitled to say "This is what we believe in and we shall introduce legislation to give effect to it". I think that the House is sometimes not doctrinaire enough. For instance today's Honours List would be improved by some attention to doctrine. There would be greater honesty if the House were more doctrinaire. But those who do not be-live in this particular doctrine have a right to oppose the Bill.
The Bill presents a primitive form of nationalization—State Socialism, which will simply add bureaucracy on to industry. I find it difficult to believe that it will teach people like Sir Eric Yarrow to do their business any better.
The Government must know that the creation of enormous monolithic industries in steel, the Post Office, and so forth, has led to great difficulties and is a constant source of complaint, but the Government do not appear to have learned anything from them about the nature of nationalisation. If they plan to nationalise manufacturing industry they will run into this difficulty again and again. One cannot tell by looking at a Bill whether it is hybrid. It is true that no Government Department can possibly know what is being done in various parts of the country. There is, therefore, a case for looking at our procedures, but not in the middle of a Bill, and not simply for the convenience of the Government.
The Leader of the House said yesterday that the matter would be left to the House of Commons. The right hon. Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) said that we were masters of our own procedure. Those are very fine phrases. I do not believe that the motion is a proper one. But if, as the Leader of the House says, the matter is to be left to the House of Commons, there should be a free vote.

Mr. George Cunningham: They are all free votes.

Mr. Grimond: I am delighted to hear the hon. Member say that, because that is not the view of the Leader of the House. He once published a pamphlet called "Parliament in Danger", the whole theme of which was that we should get rid of the Whips and have free votes. He asked whether it was improper for a Minister involved to be called upon to convince the House of Commons of his case without the assurance that a heavy majority had been guaranteed to him by the Whips. He said:
How much could such a genuine debate contribute to public understanding. Leadership is the great cement and discipline is the most shabby of substitutes.
The right hon. Gentleman is the Leader of the House and he should speak for the whole House. He would have gained great sympathy and improved the standing of Parliament if he had said yesterday that he accepted Mr. Speaker's ruling, that this is a House in which minority views are respected and in which the rule of the Speaker is paramount, and that he would take the Bill away and submit it to examiners.

Mr. George Cunningham: We know that the public's faith in this place is not too high, but the people deserve to have some faith in it. Does the right hon. Gentleman not see what damage is done to that faith when one talks about free votes. Although my remark a few moments ago caused hilarity, in a real sense every vote in this place is a free vote, and every hon. Member is answerable to his conscience for how he votes tonight at 10 o'clock.

Mr. Grimond: I wish that I could send the hon. Member a copy of the pamphlet produced by the Leader of the House. The right hon. Gentleman pointed out the dire consequences that befall a Member of Parliament for not obeying the Whip.


Unfortunately, the pamphlet is out of print. The right hon. Gentleman has played many parts in his time and he has not always been a dedicated upholder of the freedom of the Left. He was at one time an editor for Lord Beaverbrook.
But there are in the House the so-called Social Democrats. They have been making noises lately, to the effect that the public sector is too big already. They have been expressing doubts about further nationalisation. All these matters have come to a head in this debate, but will those hon. Members troop through the Lobby in support of the motion?
The point is simple. We do not have a written constitution, but we have certain firm understandings about the conduct of democratic government. Those understandings are being broken as they have never been broken before. This may create a precedent that the Labour Party will come to regret. The reasons for doing it are insufficient and the difficulties of the shipbuilding industry could be met in other ways.

5.40 p.m.

Mr. William Small: I am grateful to be called to speak. I never take exceptionally long in addressing the House.
I am the first hon. Member to speak who sat on the Committee that considered the Bill through 58 Sittings. It is interesting to listen to all this talk of legal theory, parliamentary etiquette and what we mean by hybridity.
"Hybridity" is a great word. I have made many scholastic speeches on the Bill. Perhaps an hon. Member would like to print an anthology of my speeches. It must have been fascinating to people going to work in Tokyo this morning, wondering what was happening in Great Britain, when they read all about hybridity. The boys in Tokyo have taken over almost all the shipbuilding on the face of this planet. They will have been very interested in what has happened in this House. They will have said the Japanese equivalent of "Hallo, hallo", and then "Sayonara to the British ship-building industry". That will be their general reaction.
The hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) is an excellent scrutineer of the minutiae of parliament-

tary business. I saw him on television last night in a discussion with my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer), telling the world about hybridity. The hon. Member for Tiverton spoke about a taxi analogy. I shall not go into details, but if that is the sort of man who wants to run Great Britain he ought to go to the nearest taxidermist and asked to he stuffed.
I speak for the people I represent—the untutored proletariat who lead crippling lives in areas of constant struggle. They need quantity and development in the British shipbuilding industry.
I am pleased to see the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) here. I pay tribute to him, because he treated the Glasgow shop stewards with dignity when they came to the House. That is a good part of his record.
I have received a number of telegrams from people on the Clyde. They are in favour of this nationalisation measure. The proportion of hybridity in this Bill is equivalent to the proportion of the British shipbuilding industry represented by a Meccano set.
I know quite a lot about the Bill. It is a decentralising measure of nationalisation and is not in the same style as previous nationalisations. Take industrial democracy, for instance. About 54 managements will have the opportunity to produce industrial democracy, yard by yard. The Government are not laying down the terms in the section of the Bill that deals with industrial democracy. If that is not decentralisation, I do not know what decentralisation means.
Industrial democracy started with an experiment at Fairfield's, on the Clyde. To the other shipbuilders in the country it seemed like an illegal regime, but people came from Gothenburg, Hamburg and all over the world to study the experiment. People who talk about industrial democracy should study the strengths and weaknesses of that experiment.
What is the position of Marathon? It is not covered by the terms of the Bill and the minutae of the details about hybridity. My friends Dan McGarvey and Jack Service went to America and promised, as trade unionists, that the yard would not be nationalised. In order to


hold to that promise, I suggest that the yard should be included in the Bill. There is American and British investment in NATO. We have to make a contribution to the Alliance, and I suggest we can do it by building warships at the Marathon yard.

Mr. William Ross: Yarrow's would have a fit.

Mr. Small: This suggestion might cause some people to have a fit. I am not dealing with Yarrow; I am dealing with the necessity of job creation.
Let us consider New Clause 1 which has not yet been discussed.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We are not discussing New Clause 1. We do not want to know about it at the moment.

Mr. Small: It will be an urgent matter if we proceed with the Bill. It provides that we should introduce a data centre. Perhaps I should not deal with it at present. I sometimes get terribly annoyed about the use of words. For instance, if we follow current fashions, we would be calling all the Chairmen in the House "Chairpersons".
There is no stronger supporter of this Government measure than I. We must make progress with it, and it must be supported tonight.

5.58 p.m.

Mr. Edward Heath: The issue before the House is a simple one but certainly not a mean one. It is an issue of principle and one which the House should consider most carefully before the vote tonight.
The right hon. Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) said that the House could do whatever it liked whenever it liked. Technically that may be true, but it is also true that we have built up rules of conduct and conventions and we have established a situation in which they are not changed unless there is discussion first and general consent about the changes.
Reference has been made to the legislation we had to introduce to suspend Stormont in Northern Ireland. There was a precedent for that at the beginning of the Second World War in 1939, but it was such an exceptional precedent that it

caused my right hon. Friends and me many hours of thought and worry before we approached the House and said we believed that the situation in Northern Ireland was of such severity that we had to ask the House to follow those procedures.
As has already been pointed out, there was common agreement and the House as a whole said "We are prepared to accept this exceptional procedure because of the seriousness of the present situation." Nevertheless, there was very full time, I remember, going almost right through the night when right hon. and hon. Members had the opportunity of discussing the legislation which was put forward, of tabling amendments and of discussing the whole matter very fully.
This is not just another parliamentary row, of which the public have heard all too many and are now all too tired. Nor is this just a procedural wrangle. Yesterday Mr. Speaker gave the lie to that when he gave his ruling. Nor is it simply a continuation of the debate on nationalisation on the Floor of the House. It is much more than that. I believe that it is even more than what the Leader of the Liberal Party has described as changing the rules in the middle of the game. No, it is a question of principle which concerns respect for the rights of the minority—first, the minority outside the House, and, secondly, the minority inside the House.
We have established our rules for hybrid Bills specifically to protect the rights of a minority. A hybrid Bill, by its very nature, makes an unequal arrangement. Therefore, the Standing Orders governing hybrid Bills set out a procedure which allows those who consider that they are being treated unequally as minorities to petition against that fact. The arrangement is made whereby their petition can be fully considered and taken into account. The effect of the motion of the Leader of the House in regard to the Bill, which concerns two great industries and many companies, is to sweep away the whole of the provision for safeguarding the rights of minorities. That is precisely what the right hon. Gentleman is doing.
Therefore, the House has to ask itself "Is this justified by the particular circumstances?". Moreover, is it justifiable


to set a precedent for sweeping away rules which have so long been established to look after the rights of a minority? That seems to me to be the real point to which the House should address itself.

Mr. Robert Hughes: The right hon. Gentleman has mentioned minorities. Will he say which minorities outside the House would be affected by the Bill being classed as a hybrid?

Mr. Heath: What I can say is that there are many firms outside the general provisions of the Bill which may consider that they are affected. It is not for me to try to anticipate the minorities that will be concerned. If people do not consider that they are dealt with unequally, they will not petition. It is not for us beforehand to say that no one is affected or that no one will petition. The decision rests with others provided that we set up the procedure.
Nor is the Leader of the House or the Secretary of State for Industry—who has just returned to the Chamber—entitled to say that so far no one has petitioned, written to him or raised the matter until it was raised so skilfully by my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop). That is not the argument when there was no declaration of a hybrid Bill and no indication was given that it was the sort of Bill that gave people a right to say that they were being treated unequally.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Not only is there a petition in existence, which was placed before the House and put in the Bag, which means that this is not a hypothetical question, but at this moment there are workers and shop stewards in the Lobby from the Bristol Channel Ship Repair Company who want to petition against the Bill. This is an actuality and not a hypothetical question.

Mr. Heath: Yes, I am aware of that. I said that until this matter was raised yesterday by my hon. Friend there was no indication that it was the sort of Bill that gave firms or individuals the right to petition. That is the matter which the House has to consider as the real issue of principle.
The Secretary of State for Industry devoted a considerable part of his speech to providing various pieces of informa-

tion. I ask him in passing whether any of the information he gave to the House was not placed before Mr. Speaker before he made his decision. If it was all placed before Mr. Speaker, the Secretary of State cannot have any justification for trying to indicate that there are other reasons than those placed before Mr. Speaker and that Mr. Speaker ought, perhaps, to reach another decision.
The plain fact is that Mr. Speaker and his counsel can reach a decision only on information placed before them by a Department. They have no resources of their own. Therefore, the Department must take responsibility for not providing information on which Mr. Speaker reaches his final decision. I hope that the Secretary of State will not in any way try to disown that responsibility.
I now turn to the protection of the rights of minorities—

Mr. Abse: Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding the independent advice which he receives, provided as he is with public officials and his own counsel, is a cipher of a Department and does not have an independent rôle in certifying a Bill?

Mr. Heath: I was saying nothing of the sort, neither has the hon. Gentleman justification for so saying. I said that when Mr. Speaker and his legal advisers have to reach a decision on a question of facts, the only people who can provide those facts for them, should they ask for them or should they be volunteered, are the members of the Department. That is well known as part of the machinery of government. The Secretary of State and his Department, or the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor, are responsible for the information that was provided or the lack of it. However, Mr. Speaker having reached his decision on the information placed before him, I should have thought and hoped that everyone, including the Leader of the House and the Secretary of State, would accept the decision as being quite clear—namely, that there is prima facie a hybrid Bill before us.
I now move to the second aspect of minorities, which is that it is the responsibility of the Leader of the House to safeguard their position in the House. He knows that technically he is in a minority,


but it is his job to safeguard the position of minorities. Mr. Speaker has already done so by his decision on the Bill. I suggest to the Leader of the House that it is his responsibility to safeguard the position of minorities by accepting the ruling of Mr. Speaker and carrying through the existing rules, procedures and conventions of the House. if the right hon. Gentleman came to the conclusion that the rules should be changed, as did the right hon. Member for Lanark, very well, let them be examined and let us consider whether they are up to date, but let us not say that because of the situation before us the rules should be changed now.
The last part of the Secretary of State's speech emphasised the necessity of carrying on with the Bill. I recognise full well all the pressures which are upon the Secretary of State and the Leader of the House. Of course, there are pressures from the Patronage Secretary. After all, I exercised those pressures myself for four years to get business through the House. There are also the pressures of the Department. I was once head of the Secretary of State's Department. I know full well the pressures from the Department, it having had to handle the Bill through 58 sittings in Committee, to get the Bill through. But I say to the Leader of the House and the Secretary of State that the thing which really matters is the principle of safeguarding the position of the minority outside and inside the House.
It is easy for the Department to say "We must get on. It is only a hairline hybrid. You should be able to get away with this, Secretary of State." It is all very well for the Chief Whip to say "Think of the horror of asking people to sit later in July and earlier in September if we are still to try to get the Bill through." What matters, however—I suggest that it matters just as much to everyone on the Government Benches as on the Opposition Benches—is that the rights of the minority should be protected.
There is an argument about jobs. I have every sympathy with those concerned. Anyone who is in the shipbuilding industry—and perhaps this applies to many in the aircraft industry—has every right to be anxious about his job at this time in particular but certainly for the

future. There is uncertainty. The curse is that there has been uncertainty for a decade because of the threat of nationalisation hanging over the shipbuilding industry and, later, the aircraft industry. That uncertainty, that anxiety, is there. We ought to do everything possible to remove it as soon and as much as possible—it will not be entirely possible—or to allay it. I do not believe that at this moment that ought to override the issue of principle.
Moreover, as the Leader of the Liberal Party said, if the Secretary of State and the Leader of the House had said "This is the situation. We accept Mr. Speaker's ruling. We will now follow an alternative procedure of either referring the Bill as it is after Committee to the examiners or of withdrawing it." I think that the latter procedure is open to the technical objection that it was a hybrid Bill from the start; if the Government accept that, having got so far, having already violated the principle, they should withdraw the Bill and re-present it in its present form as it has been through Committee, I am sure that the House would be willing to take Second Reading quickly. I am sure that my tight hon. and hon. Friends would see no reason for delaying Second Reading when the Bill had already had a Second Reading and been through Committee. After that, however, the procedure can ensure that the rights of minorities both inside and outside this House are protected.
I hope that on such a vital question of procedure as that the Leader of the House willl consider the wishes of the whole House, not only the Government side—I know how strongly they feel about nationalisation—in getting the business through.
The Secretary of State spoke of necessity. No doubt we shall hear it again from the Leader of the House tonight. But I remind him of the words of William Pitt:
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Not very long ago the right hon. Gentleman would have been standing here below the Gangway producing even more eloquent words of his own to that effect. I ask him to remember those words, to see the truth in them, to realise that he would like to be in a positon to say them


himself, and then to take the action which follows those words—to withdraw the Bill and go through the proper procedure.

ROYAL ASSENT

Mr. Speaker: I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified Her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

1. Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1976
2. Land Drainage (Amendment) Act 1976
3. Licensing (Amendment) Act 1976
4. Seychelles Act 1976
5. Australian Estates Companies Act 1976
6. Standard Life Assurance Company Act 1976
7. Railway Clearing Systems Superannuation Fund Act 1976
8. Samuel Montagu and Company Limited Act 1976

AIRCRAFT AND SHIPBUILDING INDUSTRIES BILL (STANDING ORDERS)

Question again proposed,That the amendment be made.

6.4 p.m.

Mr. Eric S. Heffer: I think that the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) has made an ingenuous speech. Obviously it needs the closest examination.
The right hon. Gentleman suggested that the Government would be creating a new precedent if they carried out the proposal contained in the motion. He suggested that the rules were being swept away. For his benefit and that of other Members, I should point out that today I did some examination of precedent on this argument. I discovered, looking back over the past, that this situation has never arisen before in the House. We have never had a Bill reach this stage—I am not arguing with Mr. Speaker's decision—and then be declared a hybrid Bill at this juncture. In that sense, this is a precedent.
The right hon. Gentleman talked about necessity. There is another quotation about necessity:
Necessity is the mother of invention".
It seems to me that we have to deal with a precedent. If we look back we discover that, for example, the Electricity Supply Bill 1934 was challenged in the House before Second Reading. In fact, I can go further back. On 24th May 1921, Sir F. Banbury raised the question of the Railways Bill being a hybrid Bill before Second Reading. If we want to come more up to date, the Iron and Steel Bill was challenged by Sir John Hobson in the House before Second Reading. On each of those occasions a ruling was given by the Chair before Second Reading. In other words—this is the precedent I am arguing in reply to the right hon. Gentleman—a decision was made before Second Reading. If at that stage a Bill had been declared to be a hybrid Bill, it would have gone to the Select Committee for examination and so on. That is the precedent.
This House is based on precedent. We have Standing Orders—incidentally, I was on the Committee—which from time to time are brought up to date and presented to the House. Constant changes are taking place the whole time. This House, like the trade union movement, has something called custom and practice. It is most remarkable. Usually we have to legislate later to catch up with custom and practice.
The custom and practice in this House has been to challenge hybridity before Second Reading. After all, the history of this House shows that every Bill has gone through as a Public Bill, a hybrid Bill or a semi-Private Bill.

Sir David Renton: Surely the hon. Gentleman has not overlooked the fact that this Bill could have been declared a hybrid Bill before Second Reading if all the facts eventually brought to light this week by my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) had been made known by the Government to those concerned.

Mr. Heffer: The right hon. and learned Gentleman must know that the facts were known.

Sir David Renton: No.

Mr. Heffer: They were known. In his submission the hon. Member for Tiverton


(Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop), who raised this matter, talked about Marathon producing the oil rig which has now been classified as a ship—[Interruption.]—or a barge-ship or ship-barge; I do not want to get involved in that kind of argument—on 21st July 1974. I have a feeling that people in the industry, particularly those in all the other yards concerned who were watching closely what was happening and knew what was likely to happen today, must have been watching the situation in the closest possible way. If they were not, it is most remarkable that this question should be raised at this particular time. Was it raised at this particular time only in order to let the Government get into the muddle into which they have got at present? I am not accusing anyone. I am making the point that it is not quite as simple as is being suggested.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: It is certainly true that there were people who knew that this vessel was being constructed, and it is certainly true that there were people who knew about hybridity; but they did not happen to be the same people. The people who knew about what was going on at the yard did not include Mr. Speaker, and the people who knew about hybridity did not know what was going on at the yard. That was why the matter could not be raised until the point in time when those two came together.

Mr. Heffer: The hon. Gentleman in no way contradicts what I have said. In fact, he has underlined the point I have been making.
I want to return to a point made by the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton). He referred to the statement made by Sir Barnett Cocks this morning. I felt that the right hon. Gentleman's remarks on radio about Sir Barnett Cocks—a transcript of which I have in my hand—were absolutely disgraceful. They only underline the rudeness of the right hon. Gentleman's character. He is renowned for his rudeness to other hon. Members and for his very funny, slick jokes, at times.
However, what did the previous Clerk say? I am only a simple, ordinary Back Bencher, and I get into a great morass of difficulties in trying to understand things. The former Clerk of the House said:
I would say that the ruling on Tuesday when the Speaker said the Bill had been

examined in the usual way and was found not to be hybrid would seem to me to be an admirable ruling. The ruling last night would be, to my mind, a somewhat astonishing one.
If the former Clerk of the House felt that it was astonishing, surely hon. Members and people in the country, particularly workers in the industry——

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must not criticise my ruling. [Interruption.] Order. To apply adjectives to my ruling is very questionable. It is getting very near to criticism.

Mr. Heffer: Mr. Speaker, you really should have been listening to what I said. [HON. MEMBERS: "Order."] With due respect, I merely quoted something from a transcript of a BBC programme. I have not criticised your ruling, Mr. Speaker, and I went out of my way earlier, when you were in conversation with someone, to make it absolutely clear that I did not in any way question your ruling. I am not questioning the ruling but am merely pointing out that if there can be confusion—because that is what it means—in the mind of a former Clerk of the House, who undoubtedly helped to advise the previous Speaker, hon. Members and working people outside the House have a right to be confused as well and not to understand precisely what is happening as regards this matter.

Mr. Heseltine: This point is absolutely germane. As the hon. Member will understand, you, Mr. Speaker, ruled on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the hon. Member is discussing the reasons why there was a change of ruling. The principal reason why the situation changed is that the information which was being provided to you by Department of Industry officials was found to be inaccurate.

Mr. Heffer: All that I have to say to the hon. Gentleman, as I said in the House yesterday, is that people who work in the shipbuilding and ship repairing industries understand very well what a ship is. Those who work in the oil rig business understand what an oil rig is. They understand that very well, but they do not understand the niceties of the lawyers' arguments on this question.

Mr. Ian Lloyd: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Heffer: No, I shall not give way. I have given way about seven times. If


hon. Members do not like my speech or the points I am making, they should extend to me the same courtesy as I extended to the right hon. Member for Sidcup. They should try to get in later in the debate and make their own points in a speech. If they are incapable of doing that, perhaps they had better not be Members of this House.
I have also received a great number of telegrams from the workers on Merseyside—for example, from the General Secretary of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions of Merseyside, covering the shipbuilding and engineering unions. I have received a telegram from all the employees of the CBS Engineering Company, of ship repairers, in Liverpool—I assume that they called a meeting this morning—saying:
Situation in industry is serious. The only hope for the future is to take the industry into public ownership.
I have received another telegram from the confederation stewards of Western Shiprepairers. They say:
Urgent that shipbuilding and ship repairing are nationalised to avoid final elimination of the industry on Merseyside. Unemployment now at 80,000.
They demand that the industry be nationalised. I have received similar telegrams from Cammell Laird shop stewards and the Merseyside Joint Construction Unions.
That is the voice of the organised working people in the shipbuilding and ship repairing industries. The telegrams that I have read out can be multiplied by my hon. Friends from Scotland, Bristol, Sheffield, the North-East Coast, and elsewhere. [An HON. MEMBER: "Glasgow."] I said Scotland. Working people want to see the Bill implemented at the earliest possible moment because they know that its their only hope of safeguarding their livelihoods in the future. In fact, there would now be no shipbuilding industry were it not for the Government pouring in money. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Taylor) should bear in mind what was said last night by Mr. Baylis, the director of the Shipbuilders' and Repairers' National Association. He said:
If these proposals are not to proceed, then action must be taken without further delay to assist British shipbuilders to meet the present intensely difficult market situation.

In other words, even if we do not take the industry into public ownership, companies will have to line up at the Department of Industry for more finance in order to keep themselves going. The principle of my party is that, if we are to put public money into an industry, we want public accountability and public control of that industry. That is what this issue is all about.
I noted with great interest Mr. David Wood's front-page spread in The Times of today, in which he said that all this arose because someone who was a shareholder in Yarrow's had drawn it to the attention of the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine). The hon. Member obviously did not want to raise the matter himself, because had the Bill been ruled to be not a hybrid Bill he would have looked silly; so he got his hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton to raise the matter. I understand that the hon. Gentleman gave a name, but I also understand that certain Opposition Members are involved very much with the shipbuilding and ship repairing industry.
The truth of the whole matter is that it is a ploy to stop the Government carrying out their declared election pledges. That is what it is intended to do. It has nothing to do with what was said by the right hon. Member for Sidcup and nothing to do with the protection of minorities or principles—except the principle of the acceptance of the private enterprise system, which over the last few years has been dragging this country down.

6.20 p.m.

Mr. Robin Maxwell-Hyslop: I have no interest to declare save that of Parliament. The kindest comment I can make on the observations of Sir Barnett Cocks is that confusion is not a new inhabitant of his mind, and it would have been more seemly and consistent with his past if he had left the task of advising Mr. Speaker to those who have been able to examine the evidence, a class of persons which does not include Sir Barnett Cocks.
The issue before us is not the merit of your ruling, Mr. Speaker, but whether the House should take totally unprecedented steps to obviate the procedures which its Standing Orders lay down.
Hon. Members have asked the interesting, though in no way germane, question of why the hybridity of the Bill was identified after the Committee stage rather than before it. The answer is that, although there were undoubtely some people outside the House who were aware of some of the relevant facts which make the Bill a hybrid Bill, and there were undoubtedly many hon. Members on both sides of the House who were fully familiar with the rules which make the Bill a hybrid Bill rather than a Public General Bill, these two groups did not coincide. It was not until 10 minutes to three o'clock last Tuesday afternoon that both sets of knowledge were coexistent in my possession. That was the moment at which I was able to make a submission to Mr. Speaker concerning the nature of a vessel which was undeniably being constructed on the crucial date, 31st July 1974, in the shipyard owned by Marathon.
The definition which is applied is not from some obscure Act, nor is it a definition trivially imported into the argument. It is a definition chosen by the Government for their specific purpose. It is not a definition general for all purposes, and it is not a definition to govern subsequent Bills or Acts. It specifically states that it is a definition which is to be used for the relevant part of the schedule to the Bill, namely, Part II of Schedule 2 to the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill.
That definition is entirely of the Government's choice, not of Parliament's choice, not of Mr. Speaker's choice, not the choice of the Officers of the House, not the choice of Yarrow, not the choice either of those parts of the industry to be nationalised or those to be excluded from nationalisation. It is the Government's choice.
If it was an incompetent choice, the incompetence is the Government's incompetence, and it does no credit to the Leader of the House that he should try to cast the allegation of incompetence and the responsibility for it on to shoulders other than those he knows perfectly well are responsible for it, namely, the Department of Industry as the sponsoring Department of the Bill. No one else in heaven or earth bears the responsibility for that.
Incidentally, those who bear the constitutional responsibility for it are those who chose to have their names endorsed on the Bill when it was presented to Parliament. That procedure is adopted so that the House shall know whom to hold accountable to Parliament for the shortcomings of a Bill. Names are endorsed on a Bill for no other reason than that. The Leader of the House need not speculate on where responsibility lies. He need not even share his thoughts with us. He need only read the face of the Bill and he will find where it lies.

Mr. Bob Cryer: Why did not the hon. Gentleman raise this matter in the Standing Committee of which he was a member? Does he deny the story on the front page of The Times today that this is a Tory plot which the Tories have been hatching for a long time?

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: I do not believe that The Times said that. I presume that the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) has just come into the Chamber. Had he come in earlier he would have known the answer, which his hon. Friends doubtless will tell him. It would not be fair to other hon. Members who wish to address the House for me to repeat the answer for his benefit.
What else is there to be pleaded? There is no dispute on your ruling, Mr. Speaker. There is no dispute on the rules which the House has adopted and which are still extant to govern cases of this kind. There is no Standing Order which says that hybridity must be claimed after Second Reading or we must for ever hold our peace. There is no precedent for claiming that unless hybridity is alleged after Second Reading it cannot be alleged.
I would guess—it can only be a guess—that there has not been a previous occasion when the two aspects of knowledge—knowledge of our procedure and what is in the Bill on the one hand and knowledge of perceptible fact, localised in some shipyard in this case, on the other hand—have not become coincident until a later stage. That may well be without precedent. There is no reason for saying that, because this is the first occasion on which these two aspects of knowledge have apparently become coincident, the Standing Order should be suspended unless a point of order is raised


after Second Reading and before Committee stage.

Mr. Nigel Spearing: I also declare an interest in the procedures of the House. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the reason for this unprecedented motion is the point which he has just made? It is unprecedented not only in the manner he described but also on a relatively narrow matter. Does not that justify the action taken by the Leader of the House?

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: No. The Standing Order is not affected by whether the hybridity of the Bill is identified earlier or later. The essence of the Standing Order is that, once hybridity has been identified, those who are affected in a way in which others who fall in the same category are not affected shall have the opportunity of petitioning a Select Committee of the House for equal treatment before the law. That essence is not lost even at this moment in time.
If the normal procedure of the House is followed and if the amendment of my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) is carried, I presume that the House will order the Bill to be sent to the examiners in the normal way. After a lapse of time for the examiners to receive petitions and to examine them for locus standi, the matter will be referred to a Select Committee of the House, not so that it can duplicate the 58 sittings of the Standing Committee but so that it can examine the petitions against the Bill. That is an entirely different function. It is a function which a Standing Committee cannot, and which this particular Standing Committee has not, performed.
If the Select Committee reports to the House that the petitions are without merit and that the Bill does not require any amendment in consequence, we shall be in the same position as now. We shall have a Bill which has completed all its Committee processes and now awaits further consideration by the whole House on Report.
I mention that because there are some hon. Members who erroneously believe that, unless the motion is passed, the 58 sittings of the Standing Committee will be lost, all that time will be wasted

and we shall have to go through it all again. They believe that that would be a wretched waste of parliamentary time—and so it would be if that were the case, but it is not.

Mr. Clemitson: Who will refer the Bill to the examiners, and under which Standing Order will it be referred since Standing Order No. 38 applies only to Second Reading?

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: In order to get the Bill to the examiners, there would be a motion by the Government on the Order Paper. I have never known such a motion to be disputed. It is a simple thing.

Mr. Clemitson: New rules will have to be made.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: It does not involve new rules or Standing Orders. Under the Standing Order, the Leader of the House places a motion on the Order Paper. If he looks up the Journals of the House, the hon. Member for Luton, East (Mr. Clemitson) will find them peppered with such motions. Special procedures are not required, nor need the 58 sittings of the Standing Committee be abandoned. What we have to do now need not take any longer than if the Bill had been declared hybrid after Second Reading. There is no reason why the Select Committee stage of the Bill should take longer now than it would have taken had that stage come before Second Reading. It is therefore untrue to say that, by identifying the hybridity of the Bill at this stage, in some way its passage through the House is delayed compared with what would have happened had it been identified at the Second Reading stage.
The argument that this is a device to delay the passage of the Bill is totally without foundation. The argument which has now become precious is the relevance of the hybridity being identified earlier. We would have found ourselves in severe difficulty had we not identified the hybridity until after the Report stage had been entered upon or completed. Since that is not the case, we do not have to deal with it. We must deal with the present situation in which hybridity has been identified, and ruled as such by Mr. Speaker, at a time when the


rights of minority and the due process of Parliament can still be honoured.
The duty which all hon. Members owe to themselves, to the House which they serve and the community outside is to let the Bill take its normal course as a hybrid Bill by giving it to the examiners and——

Mr. Varley: A prima facie hybrid Bill.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: A prima facie hybrid Bill goes to the examiners of the House and thence to the Select Committee if they are satisfied that the Bill has hybridity and the petitioners have locus standi.
If the Secretary of State believes that although it is prima facie a hybrid Bill it is not in fact a hybrid Bill, he can let it go to the examiners and he will win his point within a few days. He is determined that it shall not go to the examiners because he does not believe that it is a Public General Bill. He knows that Mr. Speaker's ruling that it is prima facie a hybrid Bill will be confirmed by the examiners. That is why the right hon. Gentleman wants the House to pass a special motion denying the examiners the Bill—that is what his motion says. It states:
That, in view of the serious consequences to the industries concerned and for those employed in them for further delay and uncertainty, in relation to the proceedings on the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill, any Standing Orders relating to Private Business, and consideration of the application of any such Standing Orders, are dispensed with.
The final words are "dispensed with." Those are words used by anyone who wishes to get rid of parliamentary processes.
Let the Leader of the House be true to his past, and what may even now be left of himself, and let the House of Commons show that it is still a Parliament and not a processing machine.

6.38 p.m.

Mr. Leo Abse: I am no less jealous of the rights of individual hon. Members and of the House itself against the Executive than any hon. Member on the Opposition Benches. I am certainly no less concerned than the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) or the hon. Member for Tiverton

(Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop). Therefore, as an hon. Member of the House and, I hope a parliamentarian, I would be deeply concerned if I believed that a blunder of considerable proportions had been made by the Government who, while legislation was going through, belatedly endeavoured, by manoeuvre and manipulation, to change the rules of the House to establish a permanent and dubious precedent. That would be usurping the rights of the House.
The gravamen of the charge, as I understand it from what has been said by hon. Members of the Conservative Opposition and by the Leader of the Liberal Party, is that the Government have blundered and that they must take the consequences and accept that. I do not, however, accept that the difficulties have arisen from the conduct of the Government or any Department of Government.
We would place ourselves in a dangerous position if we attempted to assert that Mr. Speaker, his officers and those who serve him were creatures of any Department of State. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has rightly stressed that there is no question of Mr. Speaker or his officers being in commission to any Department of State.
We therefore have to accept that there were in existence as has become clearer all the time, ascertainable facts which would have led to the conclusion that this is prima facie a hybrid Bill. Those facts were available. Proper investigation would have brought them out. Questions could have been asked and answered, but the wrong questions, or no questions, were asked by the people upon whom the responsibility must finally fall to certify one way or the other whether a Bill is hybrid.
It is not a Bill that could easily have had imported into it perhaps some slight aspect of a hybrid nature. The schedule should have put anybody and everybody upon inquiry. No one looking at the definition mentioned by the hon. Member for Tiverton could doubt that attention was being drawn to the complexities involved in the Bill. Nobody could look at the list and category of firms involved without realising that the Bill was one which should have put Mr. Speaker and his office upon inquiry. The duty is an independent duty, and the blunder, if


there has been one, is an omission or mistake which is not the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State or the Government. The responsibility must fall upon those who, performing a difficult task—they are public servants who rarely make mistakes, people to whom we are deeply indebted—on this occasion have shown that they are fallible, as we all are.
I have to decide, as a Member of the House, not as a member of the Labour Party, whether I can agree that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is suggesting a proper course. I must balance the irreparable harm that can clearly be done if we revert to the normal procedures on a hybrid Bill against encroaching upon our Standing Orders, an encroachment which the motion specifically says is confined to the Bill. There is no suggestion of broadening it into a matter of principle, as the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) suggested. There is no question of trying to create a precedent. The terms of the motion identify it with this Bill and this Bill alone. As every rational man must, I must balance the harm against a very slight, and very particular, erosion of our Standing Orders.
I have heard today and yesterday the most extraordinary accusations against my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. One would imagine from the papers this morning and what has been said on the Opposition Benches that we have a new authoritarian dictator, taking on powers comparable with those taken behind the Iron Curtain or even by the Prime Minister of India. It does the House no good to lapse into institutionalised paranoia. Party politics are the essence of democracy, but when paranoic attitudes begin to be so reinforced that we have a fiasco such as we have witnessed in the past few days we are devaluing the House and our parliamentary democracy rather than enhancing them.
I know my right hon. Friend very well. He is an old friend and neighbour of mine. I have plenty of complaints against him, all grievous complaints. The trouble with him is that, far from being a destroyer of democracy, he is trying to enforce democracy upon the Principality. The trouble is that, far from being an

authoritarian Socialist, he is an old-fashioned English romantic. That is why I did not vote for him to be leader of my party. But my right hon. Friend has many merits and attributes. It does no good to the House or to us as individuals to represent one another in a distorted fashion which brings us into contempt outside, because it looks as if we are scavenging and mud slinging rather than showing proper respect for one another's views, which is what we should be doing instead of denigrating one another's personalities.

Mr. Crouch: As the hon. Gentleman refers to what the Leader of the House did yesterday, and to the motion, may I remind him that the right hon. Gentleman did not dispute Mr. Speaker's ruling. He merely suggested that we should dispense with it. Does not the hon. Gentleman think, on reflection, that the Leader of the House would have done better to tell the House "All right. We made a mistake. I am sorry.", and let the House consider how we should deal with the matter? As my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) said, perhaps it will not mean another 58 sittings in a Select Committee or even a Standing Committee. The usual channels might produce the answer. Does not the hon. Gentleman think that for once the Leader of the House nodded yesterday?

Mr. Abse: My right hon. Friend has never disputed Mr. Speaker's ruling. He has accepted it, and then put proposals before the House in an endeavour to remedy the consequences of Mr. Speaker's undisputed ruling. It does not become us to strike an attitude as though obliquely, elliptically, or in any other way we are challenging the ruling. Pershaps unlike other hon. Members, I am saying that the prime responsibility is not the Government's. The matter should and could have been ascertained before. It is wrong to try to make a scapegoat out of the Government, out of my right hon. Friends the Leader of the House and the Secretary of State. I know the difficulties and complexities in dealing with such a matter, and I know that people are fallible. I do not wish to make a scapegoat out of any individual who may be in Mr. Speaker's office. The truth is that the matter was are discussing is not——

Mr. Mayhew: Does not the hon. Gentleman's suggestion that blame lies upon an official in Mr. Speaker's office depend upon the proposition that those in Mr. Speaker's office must satisfy themselves that the statement of facts put before them by the Government is truthful? That must be nonsense.

Mr. Abse: In the last analysis, the duty lies nominally upon Mr. Speaker himself. The decision was taken by a distinguished Conservative Speaker, who fully deserved all the praise so recently bestowed upon him. It lies upon any official who may, unfortunately, in a very difficult matter not have probed sufficiently. If they failed to do that task with the rigour which it demands, if I were pressed to say where the responsibility lay, I should say that it lay not on the Government but on a former Speaker. I say that with no disrespect to him.
There can be an air of unreality about our proceedings. Here we are engaged upon a discussion about hybridity, a term lacking any meaning to the wider community outside and to most hon. Members. It is very easy to become so locked up in our own monastery that we forget what is going on in the outside world. The outside world looking at us would say that we seem to be playing a parliamentary game which really does not in any way elevate our reputation.
In The Times today we have had not only the criticisms which have been echoed here today against the Leader of the House but also a very insidious incitement to another place, suggesting that, if this House decides to adopt the course taken by the Leader of the House, it would be the constitutional duty of those in another place to make certain, if the action recommended is taken, that the Bill does not take its normal course. We have already had today certain announcements which, in my opinion, do not add to the glamour of the other place, but its reputation would certainly suffer very severely if it attempted to take such ill-advised advice from the Editor of The Times. Those in another place need to understand that if this House takes a decision we do so having taken full account of our position as parliamentarians.
The brutal fact is that this debate is a piece of camouflage. In my judgment,

sections of the House are attempting to camouflage their hostility towards the objectives of the Bill itself. In doing so they are attempting to elevate a small matter to a matter of profound principle. I do not believe that a matter of profound principle is involved. When we are snarled up in our proceedings, as we here become, we require to forget that we are ourselves party men; and we should be able to devise methods which would show to the outside world that our Parliament has elasticity and the ability in a particular situation to display an innovatory capacity which enables it to be the Mother of Parliaments.
It has been said that in this House we can make men into women by passing Acts. We have great power, which can be used on major matters, but it can be abused. This power is not being abused today. What is happening today is that rationality is being applied to a complex difficulty, and a robust common sense has come into action. It is my hope that we shall not show ourselves to be nit-picking, legalistic legislators, who are subjugating our general desire to maintain a principle to mere party politics; for if we behave in that wretched manner we shall receive praise in editorials from people who live in their own world in Fleet Street, but deserved blame from workers right throughout the country.

6.55 p.m.

Sir Derek Walker-Smith: I regret to say that the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) has, uncharacteristically in his case, fallen into error in his analysis of the responsibility for the error which has been made in this matter. I hope to deal as fully and faithfully as time allows with the underlying fallacy of his argument in that respect in the first of three propositions with which I wish to canvass with the House this evening. My first proposition is that the error that has here arisen derives from the fault of the Executive and not from any misjudgment on the part of the Officers of the House; and therefore, according to our constitutional doctrine, the error is the responsibility of Ministers and Ministers alone.
My second proposition is that though the House is master of its own procedure, the exercise of that power is subject to the inherent constraint that it must not be


used in violation of the fundamental rights of the individual citizen, and that for Ministers to invite the House to act in that way is a breach of the principles of our unwritten constitution. My third proposition is that the importance of the matter before us is to be weighed in the scales not of quantum but of principle, and that the principle here involved is basic to the operation of our British form of parliamentary government, which is not subject to the safeguards of protective provisions for individual rights entrenched in the provisions of a written constitution.
On the first of those matters—the responsibility for the error that has arisen—the position is clear, thanks largely to the devoted and successful labours of my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop). I would like to pay my respectful tribute to the work that he has done with his conscientious zeal, skill and diligence in this matter. He has proved himself a good servant of the House and a good servant of the democratic institutions of this place. The salient points, shortly, are these: if a Public Bill has the characteristics of a hybrid Bill it attracts special procedures designed to protect the private and property rights of the individual citizen. The criterion for inclusion in the category of hybrid Bill is that it is:
a Public Bill which affects a particular private interest in a manner different from the private interests of other persons or bodies of the same category or class".
The judgment as to whether the criterion as to the existence of a hybrid Bill is satisfied in any particular Bill, turns, of course, on the provisions of that Bill, which are the responsibility of Ministers in relation to matters of fact, which are or ought to be known to Ministers and which they are under a clear duty to ascertain before putting to the Officers of the House the case for Mr. Speaker's decision on the question whether it is or may be—because that is enough—a hybrid Bill; that is to say, in the idiom of these matters, that it is prima facie a hybrid Bill. It is for Ministers and their Departments to assemble the facts sufficiently and accurately to enable Mr. Speaker to interpret the position in the light of those facts.
In this case the provisions of the Bill and the relevant facts upon which turn the determination of this matter are within

a narrow compass, within paragraph 2(1) of Schedule 2. There, as we know, are two qualifying conditions. We are not concerned with the second, because there is no issue as to this, and presumably Mr. Speaker Selwyn Lloyd was satisfied on the second condition when the matter was originally submitted to him. So the matter turns solely and simply on the condition in paragraph 2(1)(a). It is not a matter of a three-year history but simply a question whether on a single specific date a company owned a shipyard being used for the construction of ships. This is a simple question of fact and definition. Clearly, the fact is that the "Key Victoria" was under construction at Clydebank on the material date, 31st July 1974.
Equally clearly, that vessel was, or might have been—because again that is enough—a ship within the proposed statutory definition in the Bill.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: If the matter were as clear as the right hon. and learned Gentleman makes out, why is it that recourse had to be made to the technical experts of the marine division of Lloyd's to find out the answer? Obviously the matter was not as clear as the right hon. and learned Gentleman seeks to imply.

Sir D. Walker-Smith: When the facts were known, the interpretation was clear. The reason why the interpretation was wrong in the first instance was not that the interpreters were unskilled, but because they were not given the facts—in other words, they were not given the straw with which to make the bricks. The issue was whether, on the facts as known, or as they should have been known, it came within the proposed statutory definition in the Bill. It was not a question, as the Secretary of State seemed to think in his somewhat idiosyncratic contribution to these proceedings, of this ship looking like all other ships, or of how the Inland Revenue viewed the matter in the esoteric exercise of its inscrutable wisdom, or of how it fitted in with the definition of another statute. For that to be so, the Bill would have to have included a provision by which the two measures were to be read together—and it does not contain such a provision. None of those matters was comprised in the criteria. The criteria


related to the definition in the Bill, written for this particular purpose and for this particular part of the Bill.
There can be no doubt that if the facts as we now know them had been brought to the attention of the Officers of the House in the context of the qualifying conditions of the definition clause, Mr. Speaker Selwyn Lloyd would have been able to decide that prima facie this was a hybrid Bill, with the same speed and unequivocal precision as the present Speaker did when the full facts were made known to him by my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton. It is clear, therefore, that the fault lies with Ministers.
Mr. Speaker is in the position of a judge, who can deal with matters only on the facts and evidence put before him. It is not his function, any more than it is the function of a judge, to undertake a roving commission to ascertain the facts. That is not his function, and he has not the resources to do so. If the known facts show a prima facie case—and that is enough—the assistance of the examiners can be invoked under Standing Order No. 38, but the matter can go to the examiners only if there is a prima facie case. If the mechanism is not got right at the start, it is not possible for it to proceed.

Several Hon. Members: rose——

Sir D. Walker-Smith: I shall give way to the hon. Member for Pontypool, but it will be the last time I shall give way.

Mr. Abse: I apologise for interrupting the rotund paragraphs of the right hon. and learned Member, but is he seriously putting forward the proposition that Mr. Speaker and his advisers have no inquisitorial capacities? In other words, is he saying that their rôle is totally passive and that they do not have a duty to ask questions brought to their attention by the nature and character of a Bill?

Sir D. Walker-Smith: They have a duty of interpretation, and also a duty to consider the facts that are brought to their attention. They do not have a duty of instituting a roving commission to inquire whether further facts are tucked away. It is the duty of Ministers to bring to their attention all relevant facts.
I have made an analogy with a court of law and the position of a judge, but a judge is in the fortunate position of having the assistance of two parties and the salutary processes of cross-examination. Mr. Speaker is dependent on the unilateral representations of Ministers.

Mr. Robert Hug: rose——

Sir D. Walker-Smith: I made clear a little earlier that although I would give way to the hon. Member for Pontypool, he would be the last hon. Member to whom I would give way.
Because there is a unilateral representation, Mr. Speaker is dependent solely on the production of facts from Ministers. Therefore, that imposes a special duty on them just as, in a court of law, there is a duty on counsel, if he is the only counsel in the case, to bring everything before the judge.
I regret to say—and I say this in no vindictive way, because this is a matter of great principle, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) said—that I believe that Ministers have failed in this duty. Their presentation of the facts has been defective and they have thereby caused a misdirection, which has led to the proceedings on the Bill being misconceived and wrongly cast in a form that is prejudicial to the fundamental rights of the citizen.
That brings me to my second proposition. Although this error has been committed and lies at the door of ministerial responsibility, is it proper for the House now to dispense with the Standing Orders? Of course, the House is master of its own procedure. But there is a clear distinction between a variation, and a retrospective variation at that, which affects only internal procedures of the House and a variation which prejudices the rights of third parties—the rights of citizens in regard to their own property and interest.
Devil's advocates may say that there is no such distinction. They say that it is all part of the sovereignty of Parliasment—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Some hon. Members shout "Hear, hear", proving that devil's advocacy is the one form of advocacy with which the Labour Benches are richly endowed.
Such a proposition is at best an oversimplification and certainly a dangerous


doctrine. Though Parliament is constitutionally sovereign as a law making body, its supremacy in our unwritten constitution does not stand alone. Dicey, in his monumental work, defined the two elements in our constitution that he referred to as its pillars—namely, the sovereignty of Parliament and the rule of law. Strike away one, and the other cannot maintain unaided the fabric of a democratic constitution.
The, protection of the fundamental rights of the citizen is an important part of the rule of law. The exercise of the sovereignty of Parliament is dependent on a respect for the fundamental rights. To act in defiance of the rule of the law and for Parliament to legislate at the behest of the Executive in breach of the fundamental rights of the citizen, is to emulate the example of the Roman Senate in Imperial days—an example condemned over 2,000 years of history—and to degrade the concept of the sovereignty of Parliament to the servile rôle of an instrument of autocratic government.
Again, the devil's advocates may say that the doctrine of sovereignty of Parliament knows no such limitations. They take the view that for just ends we can employ any means and that the end justifies the means. That is a fallacious and dangerous doctrine, for many reasons. If the rule of law is to be subverted and fundamental rights are to be invaded on such a pretext, they cannot and will not survive. That doctrine is a means of ensuring that there is only one criterion of conduct—the will of the Executive—with such support as it temporarily commands in this House.
In most countries the protection of the fundamental rights of the citizen—the right not to be discriminated against, and the right of equality before the law—figure as entrenched provisions in a written constitution Such rights in these countries are enforceable at law, and any Government or legislature seeking to invade them is subject to restraint by the courts. Such is the position in most countries today which seek to exercise constitutional democratic Government.
Why, then, is Britain an exception to the general rule? Why are the fundamental rights of the citizen not entrenched and safeguarded here in the customary way? It is not because we are unaware of their importance. Indeed, in legislat-

ing for newly independent countries, we have established such Constitutions, prefaced with entrenched provisions guaranteeing fundamental rights. Why have we not thought it necessary to apply to ourselves the treatment that we have prescribed for others? The reason is as important as it is clear. We have thought it unnecessary to fetter the sovereignty of Parliament with the constraints of a written constitution because it has been assumed throughout the generations that Parliament will always respect fundamental rights and will voluntarily act in accordance with the rule of law, and that, therefore, there is no need to impose a compulsory mechanism.
Voluntary acceptance of such constraints has been the practice and principle underlying the evolution of our parliamentary system and has been the condition that has enabled us to dispense with the safeguards of a written constitution.

Mr. George Cunningham: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

Sir D. Walker-Smith: I would like to, especially to the hon. Gentleman, but when I gave way to the hon. Member for Pontypool I said that it must be the last occasion, because of the passage of time. I am genuinely sorry.
So firmly embedded is the principle of the acceptance of the rule of law and the protection of individual rights, that Montesquieu actually thought he was deriving the principle of the separation of powers aimed at safeguarding the citizen against abuses of power from the British system. He was mistaken, of course, but only as to the form of the British constitution and not as to its spirit and purpose, which he accurately identified as aiming to protect the citizen and society by the rule of law. If, therefore, exceptionally among the nations of the world, we are to continue to operate the rule of law without having the safeguarding of fundamental rights in a written constitution, we must accept that in essence that means the constraints on the Executive and the parliamentary conduct that those rights require.
If, unhappily, such acceptance, long practised, is allowed to fall into desuetude, we have either to contemplate the formulation of safeguards entrenched


in a written Constitution or face the inevitability of a progressive decline in our free and democratic institutions.
That brings me to my third proposition, because what I have said establishes that it is no technicality with which we are here concerned, but something basic to our form of parliamentary Government, which is not subject to the safeguards of the protective provisions of a written constitution. What is involved here is the principle of non-discrimination among citizens. The law must apply impartially to all and must treat alike every citizen in similar circumstances. This principle lies much at the heart of the matter. It is the principle of equality before the law which is itself one of the great bastions of a free and fair society. [HON. MEMBERS: "Rubbish."] I have served in 10 Parliaments over more than three decades and I never thought I would hear those great principles challenged on the Floor of the House of Commons.
This great principle is directly in point here, and it is fundamental. It was recognised, as the Leader of the House well knows, by our forefathers. Indeed, the great constitutional crime laid at the door of King James II was his attempt to exercise dispensing and suspending powers—to say, in other words, as the Government seek to say, that the law shall apply to some and not to others, in some circumstances but not in all. For this constitutional crime he was properly sentenced to exile, and it will indeed be appropriate if that example is followed soon and these transgressors are equally sent into political exile.
This, then, is no technicality, still less a trivial point. Again, the devil's advocates are hard at work. All this fuss, they say, about one vessel, about the "Key Victoria" such a small thing when the nationalisation of the shipbuilding industry is such a great affair. The point on which the principle arises may be small but the principle is great and it is in the scales of principle that these things must be weighed.
I find it appropriate that this issue should arise in the context of ships. It was in a similar context that voice was first given to the great principles with which we are here concerned. It was in the context of ship money that Hampden made his great stand for the rule of law,

and it was in the same context that Burke disposed of the fallacy that the smallness of the item involved can reduce matters of principle to a mere technicality or trivia. Burke said:
Would twenty shillings have ruined Mr. Hampden's fortune? No! but the payment of half twenty shillings, on the principle it was demanded, would have made him a slave.
Those words have become part of the imperishable literature of freedom. On us in this House today falls the same duty, and to us is entrusted the same tradition. I therefore ask the House to resist this encroachment on the rule of law and to condemn the motion that which seeks to give effect to it.

7.17 p.m.

Mr. Stan Thorne: I must declare an interest on two counts. First, I have many aircraft workers in my constituency, and, secondly, I spent a lot of time in Standing Committee D which considered the Bill. It seems from the comments of the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton), who replied to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, which have been confirmed by other Conservative Members, that the Government stand accused of ignoring, or in some way subverting, the Standing Orders of the House. At the same time, reference is constantly made by Opposition Members to the fact that there is no precedent for the situation in which the House finds itself at the present time.
I suggest that if there is no Standing Order—clearly there cannot be if no similar situation has been covered by a Standing Order before—logically no Standing Orders can have been ignored or subverted by the Government in this situation. In fact, the Government are faced with a problem created by the decision of Mr. Speaker which forces the Government, or the Lord President of the Council, to produce an answer that will permit Parliament to decide how it will proceed following the decision of Mr. Speaker after the Committee stage of the Bill and prior to Report stage, which Parliament was about to consider.
The advice that we are given is now in the form of a motion before the House, upon which Parliament will decide. All the words uttered by Conservative Members about democracy are not relevant—indeed, they have seldom been relevant—to determining the answer to the problem posed. Parliament today will give


its "Yea" or "Nay" to the motion that the Government have submitted.
If we wish to hear the real voice of democracy, we should turn to a telegram which was sent yesterday to the Speaker of the House of Commons. It said:
We have viewed with despair the performance of certain members who have turned the activities of Standing Committee D into marathon of irresponsible legalistic filibustering. It appears from last evening's fiasco that we are about to suffer"——

Mr. Tebbit: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for an hon. Member to read to the House contents of a telegram which have been sent to him which clearly are in contempt of the House? The hon. Member is reading a telegram in which it is alleged that Members of the House had indulged in filibustering and irresponsible behaviour.

Mr. Heffer: It is true.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): That is not a point of order.

Mr. Thorne: I am tempted to start all over again, because the gist of this message is important. I ended at the phrase "irresponsible legalistic filibustering". I continue:
It appears from last evening's fiasco that we are about to suffer some unwholesome performance on the floor of the House.

Mr. Heseltine: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I hope that those words came to your attention. They are the clearest possible challenge to Mr. Speaker's ruling, and I believe that in those circumstances they ought to be ruled out of order.

Mr. Thorne: They can hardly be a challenge to Mr. Speaker's ruling, because at the time the telegram was sent to Mr. Speaker he had not ruled.
The telegram goes on to say:
As Worker Representatives, we demand that Parliament gives full weight to the consequences of its failure to take decisions upon the workpeople in Country and in particular upon workpeople in Shipbuilding and Aerospace industries. We will not tolerate any more uncertainty"——

Mr. Kenneth Warren: On a point of order——

Mr. Heseltine: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I submit to you that what the hon. Member is doing is a clear breach of the privileges of the House

of Commons. This is a clear challenge to Mr. Speaker's ruling, and I put it to you that it is intolerable that the hon. Member should be allowed to proceed in this way.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I think that the hon. Member for Preston. South (Mr. Thorne) had better develop his argument, and the Chair will decide in what way it is going.

Mr. Thorne: I ought to make it plain that, although this telegram was sent to Mr. Speaker, it was also sent to a number of Ministers and Members of Parliament. As one of the Members of Parliament who received it, I feel perfectly free to deal with it in order to develop the argument which arises from it. It goes on:
We will not tolerate any more uncertainty and demand that Parliament be allowed to pass or reject Bill. It has already set a record of more Committee Meetings than any previous Bill. This delay has already had an adverse effect on our employment. We demand a decision.
The telegram is signed by Mr. John Wareing, on behalf of all staff and all works unions at the British Aircraft Corporation, Preston, Warton and Samlesbury. It is in regard to the essence of that telegram that I wish to make a few points. Unlike previous speakers, I hope to make them briefly so that other hon. Members can get into the debate.
The Bill is about the public ownership of the industries—regrettably, two industries which are not booming and are not as prosperous as some of us would like, but industries which are vital to our economic life. Public ownership is vital if we are to plan and expand those industries in the interests of the British people as a whole. Should that aim be achieved, the workpeople in both industries will face for the first time the prospect of being involved in the decision-making processes within both industries.
The forward planning, the manpower requirements, the capital to be invested, the marketing of the products and the demands of our economy, which may require diversification within those industries—particularly in aerospace—will all provide the workers, whether blue or white collar, with the opportunity to come to grips for the first time with the task of running a major industry. It is


this which is the basis of the concern expressed by Opposition Members about the Bill.
It is not new, of course, to see the vigour with which Conservative Members act on behalf of private enterprise, on behalf of private profit and on behalf of the shareholders of both these industries—but not, of course, on behalf of the workers in those industries, whom they regard purely as commodities which form part of the production processes which produce the private profits to dear to Conservative Members.
At no time in Standing Committee did Conservative Members conceal their concern about the amount of compensation to be paid to shareholders, while behaving in such a manner as to threaten the workers' prospects in those industries by the completely irresponsible way in which they filibustered and delayed the passage of the Bill.
Several interventions when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State opened this debate revealed yet again the level of class consciousness which exists among Conservative Party Members when their private economic interests are being threatened. The Bill threatens their economic interests and the interests of the class they represent in this House. The passage of the Bill is in accord with the class interests of the working people in the industries concerned.

Mr. Roger Sims: Now who is talking about class?

Mr. Thorne: It is on that basis that we on this side urge the passing of the motion. The workers in both industries have waited a long time for the passing of the Bill.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: So did the steel workers, and look what happened to them.

Mr. Thorne: They have waited a long time in the belief that ultimately this Government would carry out their manifesto commitment in 1974 to take these two industries into public ownership. One thing which can be said about the Government in this regard is that they intend to do precisely that. It is because they intend to do precisely that that they have the overwhelming support of hon. Members on this side.

Mr. Ivan Lawrence: The end justifies the means.

Mr. Thorne: What we are talking about is workers' jobs and the livelihood of their families. The Government have the support of the electorate over this measure. All that remains for us to do is to pass the motion and get on with the job.

7.30 p.m.

Mr. Donald Stewart: I trust that the hon. Member for Preston, South (Mr. Thorne) will forgive me if, in the interests of time, I do not comment on his speech, otherwise I should have to continue long enough to annoy other hon. Members who may wish to speak.
I make this brief intervention in the debate as I consider that it is necessary for the record, as well as possibly making a contribution to the democratic process, that all parties and as many interests as possible in the House should declare their attitude to the motion.
The hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) said that this should not be regarded as a precedent and that it could be a "one off" operation. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is not here at the moment, but I do not think he can believe that suggestion himself. If the motion is passed, a future Conservative Government will be entitled to use this procedure against the Opposition of the day, and the then Opposition will not like it.
This is a centralising Bill. No Scottish corporation is proposed. No Scottish divisions were proposed—and this at a time when devolution is in the air. The aims of the Bill will of necessity betray the principles of decentralisation. This is the very opposite of what the situation demands.

Mr. David Lambie: Is it not correct to say that Scottish Aviation, which is included within the Bill, is now controlled by an English financial holding company based in London? Would it not be better for the workers in Scottish Aviation to be part of a Scottish unit within British Aerospace? That would give us Scottish control under British Aerospace and not English control by means of the financial holding company.

Mr. Stewart: The hon. Member should have remembered that during the discussion of the Bill. Although he indicated that he would support an amendment put down by my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) in favour of a separate Scottish division, when it came to the push he voted with the Government.
The reference in the motion to employment being at risk has no real application. There has recently been an increase in the orders on the order books of the shipyards. If capital needs to be injected, development money should be made available under Section 8 of the Industry Act.

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it possible for the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heifer) to be asked to keep silent so that we may listen to the hon. Member for Western Isles (Mr. Stewart)?

Mr. Heffer: rose——

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. This is a matter for the Chair. If the Chair deems it necessary to do so, the Chair will intervene.

Mr. Stewart: I was referring to the number of orders on the order books of the shipyards. If money is available, it can be provided under Section 8 of the Industry Act and the Scottish Development Agency should take an equity interest in the yards.
We have heard a lot about the urgency of the Bill. Although the Bill was mentioned in the Labour Party manifesto, as has been pointed out, it took 18 months for it to come before the House, so where is all the great urgency?
The Secretary of State for Industry made a reference earlier to rationalisation. We know what this means in relation to jobs in Scotland. The Scottish steel industry was nationalised and put under the British Steel Corporation, and jobs have been disappearing ever since. That is what will happen in the shipyards and to Scottish Aviation if the Bill goes through. What guarantee will the Government give that no workers will lose their jobs in Scotland?
It was disingenuous of the Lord President to talk yesterday of getting the

House to decide the matter. He knows that he will have his regiment of Lobby fodder to ensure that the motion is carried. If he really meant that a decision should be taken by the House, there should obviously be a free vote, as many hon. Members have said. That would still leave the question of pushing through a hybrid Bill, but at least it would give some credibility to the pretence of having a decision of the House.
This is the second occasion in recent weeks when the Government have resorted to bending the rules. One wonders whether there is a department of dirty tricks starting to operate—[Interruption.] I heard the response to the comment of the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) when he talked about the defence of the rights of the citizen. The strong and the powerful can look after themselves. It is the weak who need the law to protect them more than anybody else.

Mr. Robert Hughes: rose——

Mr. Stewart: I shall not give way. The Secretary of State for Industry was talking of the responsibility of the Scottish National Party Members. We need no lectures from the Secretary of State or his colleagues on that point. It is because we are aware of our responsibility that we are here, with the support of the people, and there will be more of us here—[Interruption.] Needless to say, my hon. Friends and I would prefer to be working in a Scottish——

Mr. Norman Buchan: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As to the documents which have come to the House, when one of those documents—a telegram—was referred to, the Scottish National Party spokesman deliberately—[Interruption.]

Mrs. Winifred Ewing: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We are being deluged with bogus telegrams— [Interruption.]

Mr. Buchan: Show us the telegrams.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Chair has no knowledge of these telegrams. It is not a matter for the Chair.

Mrs. Ewing: rose——

Mr. Cryer: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for Members of the Scottish National Party to pull the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mrs. Ewing) back into her seat when she has already made such a calamitous error as to describe genuine telegrams as bogus? Is it right that her hon. Friends should pull her back in order to prevent her from making any further and more serious errors?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not a matter of order.

Mr. Stewart: We would much prefer to be working in a Scottish Parliament——

Mr. Dennis Canavan (West Stirlingshire): Traitor.

Mr. Stewart: —but while we are here let us try to have some concern that the democratic processes and procedures of the House should not be diminished in any way. That is why my hon. Friends and I will vote against the motion tonight.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I call Mr. Mendelson.

7.38 p.m.

Mr. John Mendelson: Before——

Mr. Andrew Welsh: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for an hon. Member to use the word "traitors"?

Several Hon. Members: rose——

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mrs. Winifred Ewing: rose——

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Chair is in some difficulty here. The word was not heard by the Chair. I think that the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) should be allowed to continue his speech, and then we may find out what is the position.

Mr. Mendelson: I know that——

Mrs. Winifred Ewing: rose——

Mr. Mendelson: Come on. Let me proceed.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Keith Stainton: On a point of order, Mr.

Deputy Speaker. Apparently some word was not heard by you, but I understand that the hon. Member who used it has volunteered to repeat it for your benefit.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not the impression of the Chair. I think that the hon. Member for Penistone must be allowed to continue his speech.

Mrs. Winifred Ewing: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Must there not be some protection when the House clearly hears a word that we think is unparliamentary, but we are not sure? We are asking for your ruling.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The Chair is unsure also, because it did not hear the word.

Mr. Canavan: I used the word "traitors" figuratively because, in effect, the members of the Scottish National Party are betraying the working class in Scotland.

Mr. Mendelson: I know that——

Mr. Welsh: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May we have a ruling on this word?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: If it was used, it was unparliamentary and must be withdrawn.

Mr. Canavan: I would like to change my words, Mr. Deputy Speaker, by saying that the members of the Scottish National Party are anti-Scottish and anti-working class.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I take that as a withdrawal.

Mr. Mendelson: I know that the hon. Member for Western Isles (Mr. Stewart), judging by my past experience of hearing him in debates on the economic affairs of Great Britain, is interested in the subject of today's debate, as is any other hon. Member. I shall therefore address myself to the subject of the decision to which we have to come and will try to persuade him, before he makes up his mind, of the decisive issue in the debate, despite all the disagreements that have arisen on other points.
I begin by making reference to a statement by the Leader of the Opposition both in the House and on television yesterday. She made an appeal to the House and to the people at large in


which she tried to persuade the electorate that the Government are doing something that is undermining the constitution—not the rules of procedure, and not the established Standing Orders. She consciously and deliberately made the charge that what is being done now in the names of the Government and their supporters amounts to an attack on the constitution. That is the case we have to meet.
That theme has been echoed in a speech by the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith). He started to quote the heroes of the English Revolution to us in a speech that reached the peak of absurdity when he appealed to us to imitate the leaders of the English Revolution when discussing the definition of a ship. Listening to him, I concluded that if I were still teaching students of any kind, I would see to it that, with his version of history, he was kept as far away from them as possible. To produce a comparison with the causes of the leaders of the English Revolution and suggest that those causes were on all fours with or exactly the same as the issue that we are debating was so absurd that I could hardly believe my ears. What we are debating is none the less not un-imporant.
I turn now to the reticence of the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop). Unfortunately, he is not here at the moment. I am not complaining about that, because he has been here for most of the time. He has been most assiduous in his attendance. I am sorry that he is not here, because I want to refer to him.
The hon. Gentleman was questioned, particularly by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer), about the timing of the raising of this case. One answer was never given, and I find it curious that it was not. The hon. Gentleman said several times that the matter had been raised so late because, although it had been known for a long time that this was a hybrid Bill—I find this a singular circumstance—unfortunately, the people outside the House and those who knew that it was a hybrid Bill were not identical with the people who knew about the rules of the House, and never the twain got together. Somehow, they remained completely separate. One lot of people knew about hybrid

Bills; the other lot knew about a particular shipyard. The two never got together. How is it that, throughout a Committee stage of 58 Sittings, that knowledge was available to two sets of people but the two were never brought together? It is passing strange.

Mr. Patrick Cormack: rose——

Mr. Mendelson: No. How does it come about——

Mr. Cormack: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am sure that it was unintentional, but the hon. Gentleman has misrepresented what my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) said. My hon. Friend has never——

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is, by an ingenious method, attempting to make an intervention in the speech of the hon. Member for Penistone. If the hon. Member for Penistone does not wish to give way, that is a matter for him.

Mr. Mendelson: That was not a point of order, and I shall not give way. One of the great defenders of our freedom is the editorial writer in The Times, who is so critical of other people for not having found out all the facts about the nature of this Bill, but who has himself not taken the trouble to find out this peculiar coincidence, or to underline the fact that it occurred. In face of this coincidence, we are justified in looking more closely at the history of the matter.
I know that the hon. Member for Western Isles would not lightly wish, on doctrinaire grounds, to vote a certain way this evening. There is in the procedure that the Government propose an important right of Parliament—and it does not in any way involve the peak of absurdity reached by the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East. Nor does it involve the alleged right of minorities outside this House. Before the right hon. and learned Gentleman reached his remarks about the English Revolution and its leaders, he talked about the important consideration relevant to our debate. If there were minorities in the country whose rights might be harmed, and the House had deliberately adopted a special procedure, he would have a case. But the singular fact about his piece


of legislation is that no harm is being done to any minority outside. If there were any question of minorities being harmed, or a precedent being created to harm minorities, one could disagree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman, but one would have to admit that there was substance in his attempt. However, there is no substance at all, because this question does not even arise.
The former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) also has got it wrong when he says that this is a matter of high principle. The principle that he is concerned about is not involved. He says that the Government cannot suggest a departure from the procedure when there is actually a case under debate in the House of Commons. He is wrong, because that is precisely when the House acts—when there is a case under consideration.
The House of Commons and the British constitution are not known for calling great constitutional conventions—as is the case in France—and having the advice of great lawyers who sit together when there is no great case to be debated, and years later put forward grandiose theoretical ideas and then go to Jean Jacques Rousseau and say "This is our written Constitution". The House of Commons has always acted by advancing empirically from case to case and from experience to experience. Therefore, the right hon. Member for Sidcup is wrong on this occasion when he charges us with trying to find a solution by not proceeding in the traditional way. That is why I do not say "Hear, hear" when a right hon. Member asks whether there are hon. Members who might be devil's advocates. He is talking nonsense. There are no devil's advocates. The real tradition of this House is to advance empirically from experience to experience and from practical case to practical case, and this is one such case in point.
A lot of nonsense has been talked about my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench, but when examined this nonsense immediately falls to the ground. One might ask why my right hon. Friends have put forward this proposal. They did not sit down in their spare time, or even in official time, to think up a new rule by which they could change the standing Orders of the House. When they do

not have official business to see to it is not their pastime to tamper with the Standing Orders. They have better things to do and better things to think about.
The House of Commons procedure has developed not over the years but over the centuries, in a traditional way, when there is a particular situation that must be dealt with.
The Government had two choices in this case. They could have accepted the situation, and realised that they were facing an attempt by people who were determined to destroy the legislation and were using this difficulty as a pretext to advance their own particular philosophy. They could have seen it as part of a struggle for power, and therefore abandoned all petitions and made the work done by the House of Commons over many months null and void. On the other hand, the Government could and have thought it was better to try to reach an agreement with the House in finding a solution. That is all they have done. It is nonsense to say that they are doing this without debate. They are doing it in the way that it always has been done. It is nonsense to say that our procedure is advanced by common consent, with every Member of the House agreeing to it. Anyone who reads the history of our procedures will know that many of our Standing Orders, which are now spoken of by after-dinner speakers as reflecting great glory and credit on the British Government, caused great controversy when they were first introduced. Many people felt very strongly about them, but a few years later, when it was seen that they presented no danger to democracy and had practical value, every after-dinner speaker began to say how good they were. There is no attempt to go beyond the established traditions today.
To those hon. Members who are not particularly committed to the main Opposition party and are not particularly committed on grounds of their own political tactics, or tied to particular owners in the industries concerned, but who are deliberately using this occasion to destroy the legislation that has been put to the electorate by the party in office, I say "Think carefully before making a decision." This is a question of general responsibility. Those hon. Members should ask themselves whether they are joining


in merely because they want to join a cause that is popular for a day. I am quite certain that once the stiuation is examined carefully and the facts are explained calmly, in the light of history and common sense, many people will wonder why this attempt by the Government to find a practical solution, which in no way moves from the traditional path and does not endanger any established procedures, was not supported strongly in all parts of the House.
The right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) said that there was no precedent, and that he feared that if we agreed to the Government's motion we would be establishing a precedent. The important point that he overlooks is that people will want to know why the procedure was not called for at a much earlier stage. They will want to know more facts. It could be that in passing the motion we might be establishing a precedent for preventing such behaviour in the future. If people want to call on the procedure they will have to do it at the right time. It will be no use their saying "We have the knowledge but we shall keep it dark until we think fit". That might be a precedent that will be healthy for public life. Let the people know more about our procedure, and how it can be abused rather than used.
There is everything to be said for the practical solution being proposed tonight by the Government. There is nothing to be afraid of in supporting it. All those who oppose it may well have a case to answer later.

8.0 p.m.

Mr. David Mudd (Falmouth and Camborne): The Government motion is founded upon two basic assumptions, both of which are extremely unsound. The first is that only nationalisation can somehow, miraculously, save the aircraft and shipbuilding and ship repair industries from dire consequences. The second is that a case has been made out by the Government for recognising the proceedings so far in the Committee stage of the Bill.
Let me deal first with what is almost a guarantee from the Government that only they can create and save jobs in the shipbuilding industry. I refer to one of the Government's former shipping Mini-

sters, Lord Beswick, who said, in a letter to me, that the future of the ship repair industry was largely beyond Government control. That was his plain admission. He wrote to me on 9th October 1975, replying to a letter from me dealing with the specific fears of the work force as to the future of jobs at the Silley Cox ship repair yard at Falmouth. He said:
Silley Cox, like other British and some European repair yards, are finding difficulty in attracting sufficient orders in the present highly competitive world market, and there is little the Government can do to remedy this.
The Government cannot, therefore, claim that somehow, miraculously, the passage of six months, during which the Bill had a Second Reading and 58 Committee Sittings, has done anything to nullify or lessen those difficulties. On the analysis of one of its own former Ministers the Government must admit that they are unable to offer the remedy put forward in the spirit of this motion.
The assumption is that a case has been made out for the nationalisation of the independent ship repair sector of the industry, but the whole reason for this debate stems from one basic error in the Government's home-work, and we cannot now accept at face value their claims for a guaranteed future for that sector. Had the Government been caught out conniving, concealing or conspiring something suspect, perhaps, ironically, I would have been inclined to support them in trying to put the record straight, because then I would respect their honesty and professionalism. But now their entire presumption is basically suspect on the grounds of haphazard research, and they must forfeit their right to proceed with the bill.
Tonight it is the Government who are the left-winged, limping lame ducks of Britain. I shall do nothing whatever to bail them out of the squalor into which they have either muddled or attempted to conspire their way.

Mr. Heffer: Will the hon. Member explain why the work force in the Merseyside ship repair industry in 1947 was between 200,000 and 25,000, but has now fallen to about 4,000? There has been no public ownership since that time. How, therefore, has private enterprise in the industry proved so wonderful?

Mr. Mudd: If the hon. Member will look at Hansard when it appears tomorrow at a point roughly equivalent to 6.14 p.m. in today's debate, he will find my reply to his intervention in his own words.
Tonight we shall be voting on the Government's motion, which, including the names of the sponsors, is 57 words long. There is something most appropriate and ironic in that. Those words represent one for each day since 31st March 1976. What is so magic about that date? It was then that the Government closed their first nationalised ship repair yard—it was in Sunderland—with a loss of 400 jobs. That was an action of total arrogance and inefficiency against which I shall be voting tonight.

8.7 p.m.

Mr. Ivor Clemitson: I was sorry to hear the hon. Member for Western Isles (Mr. Stewart) say that my right hon. Friends were bending the rules. I am no expert in the procedures of the House. They constantly baffle me, and in that respect I am probably among the great majority. Since, however, we are accused of bending the rules, we should give an answer.
The first question which comes to mind is "What rules?". As far as I can discover, there is only one Standing Order which deals with prima facie hybrid Bills, and that is Standing Order No. 38. That rule deals specifically and only with the situation obtaining before a Second Reading takes place. As I understand it, every Bill is examined for hybridity before it reaches Second Reading. If there is any doubt on that score, it is referred to the examiners. I presume that this procedure took place with this Bill as with every other.
We are told that we have not only rules and Standing Orders but precedents. Various precedents have been quoted, principally that of 1948 concerning what happened before the Second Reading of the Iron and Steel Bill. But none of them fits the present situation because they are all concerned with what happens before a Bill reaches Second Reading. The right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) admitted that there was no precedent for the situation. Certainly, that applies to the much-quoted action in 1948 of Sir David Maxwell Fyfe

when he raised his point of order and specifically tried to relate the situation to the Standing Order.
This week we have had an attempt to raise the question of hybridity after Second Reading and after a lengthy Committee stage. Since the situation is not covered by any Standing Order and since there are no precedents for this situation, we must ask why. Have our predecessors in this place shown a singular lack of foresight? Could they have failed to foresee that this situation might occur, or did they have more sense than we give them credit for? I think that the last explanation is the correct one. The Standing Order by implication says that there is a limit on the time during which a question of hybridity can be reasonably raised—that is, up to the point of Second Reading. If it were not implicit, there would be a Standing Order to deal with the specific situation which arises when the question of hybridity is taken up after Second Reading.
The fact that there is a limit is sensible because the question of whether a Bill is hybrid is fundamentally a question of fact. The facts in question are the facts of the situation at or before publication of the Bill. In this case, the facts are about what was happening in the three years up to and including 31st July 1974—well before the Bill was published. These facts were known before the Bill reached Second Reading. It might be argued that their significance was not realised, but there was time for the facts to be brought to light.
It is necessary to have some kind of time limit. There are time limits on thousands of types of appeals, applications and procedures. For example, social security and national insurance benefits are extremely complicated and it is often very difficult for people to know their entitlement. They do not normally have access to professional and expert advice, but if they do not apply for the benefit within a prescribed period they do not get it.
We are not talking tonight about individuals without expert advice facing very complex legislative provisions. We are talking about a large company with expert advice facing legislation the complexity of which is as nothing compared with social security legislation. If they did not raise the matter before Second Reading, it is out of time.
By implication, the Standing Order says that a matter must be raised before Second Reading. In this case, that was not done. If that were not implied by the Standing Order, separate and specific provision would have been made.
I emphasise that I am not challenging Mr. Speaker's ruling. He said:
After long and anxious thought, I now rule that the Bill under discussion is prima facie hybrid."—[Official Report, 26th May 1976; Vol. 912, c. 445.]
I raised a point of order earlier today about who was to make the final decision. I asked whether Mr. Speaker was ruling that the Bill should go to the examiners. He replied that he had given no such ruling and that it was for the House to decide.
I submit that there is no provision in the Standing Orders for the reference of the Bill to the examiners, because Standing Order No. 38 deals only with the position before Second Reading. Therefore, as Mr. Speaker rightly said, it is for the House to decide what to do. In this casts we have no rules or precedents, so how can we be bending the rules? It is perfectly proper for us to decide to proceed with the Bill to its remaining stages.
Interested parties had proper time, within the rules, to make their objections. They did not do so. We are not trying to bend the rules. The interested parties and opponents of the Bill are trying to make new rules because they missed the bus under the existing rules.
Let us say for the sake of argument that the condition about total tonnage had been fufilled in the yard we are discussing. The question therefore hinges on the satisfaction of the condition regarding whether a ship was being built in the yard on 31st July 1974.
The hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) argues that a vessel of 3,000 tons-plus was being built there at that time. If I may misquote Oscar Wilde, the tonnage is immaterial. Suppose that a 10-ft boat or even a paddling boat for the lake at the local park had been under construction at that time. As far as I can see, either of them would have qualified as a ship under all the definitions. But if a 10-ft sailing dinghy or a paddling boat had been under construction, would this whole matter have arisen and, if so, would it not have been laughed out of court?

Mr. Cormack: The hon. Gentleman is putting up an Aunt Sally.

Mr. Clemitson: I am now going to knock it down. It is not an Aunt Sally because a very important point is involved.
An element of judgment on the size of the vessel has crept in with consideration of what is big or important enough for the matter to be raised in the House. Once this is acknowledged, some of us on this side might start asking that our criteria about what is important and our standards of proportion should be applied.
Is it not right and proper for us to decide and say that the future of two great industries and the livelihood of many thousands of our fellow citizens should be put in the balance against whether a ship, of whatever tonnage, was being built in a particular yard on a particular day in 1974? We are not bending the rules. If anybody had a grievance, he had a proper opportunity within the rules to make it known before Second Reading.
The House must make up its own mind on how to proceed. Are we to be like the Scribes and Pharisees who paid tithes of mint and anise and cummin and omitted weightier matters of the law? The question answers itself.

8.18 p.m.

Sir David Renton: I hope that the hon. Member for Luton, East (Mr. Clemitson) will allow me to congratulate him on making a much more constructive and thoughtful speech than the other contributions we have heard from his side of the House. The hon. Member was right when he said that the question whether a Bill is hybrid is a question of fact. I shall seek to show that the facts have been available to the Government from the beginning and that the Government were the only people who had all the facts at the outset.
We say that it is the Government's fault and nobody else's that the Bill was not declared a hybrid Bill before Second Reading. We also say the Government should not now be taking advantage of their failure to draw the facts to the attention of the authorities of the House so that the Bill could be treated as hybrid from the start. But that did not happen.
The hon. Member for Luton, East, if I may have his attention, was entitled to refer to Standing Order No. 38, against which is the note:
Bills which are prima facie hybrid.
He drew attention to the fact that the Standing Order appears to assume that the decision as to whether a Bill is a hybrid Bill will be taken before Second Reading. I should disclose to the House that I was the Chairman of the Committee for the Revision of Standing Orders in 1963 and again in 1970. I am happy to say that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) was a helpful member of the Committee on the second occasion. He was not on the first occasion because I do not think he was a Member of the House at that time.
The duty of the Standing Orders Committee is to carry into Standing Orders any changes made by the House by amending Standing Orders since they were previously revised and to reconsider all the Standing Orders in the light of the rulings given by Mr. Speaker and for the purpose of removing ambiguities. It is not the duty of the Committee to rewrite the whole of Standing Orders afresh and, so to speak, make them up afresh, as many of us would like to do. The Committee has to be bound by what the House has decided and by what Mr. Speaker has ruled in the past.
The hon. Member for Luton, East argues that on this Bill the opportunity was missed. I say that it was missed by the Government and by no one else, because the Government have a duty to draw the facts to the attention of the authorities of the House. I bear in mind that we had an ordinary Second Reading and the completion of a fairly long Committee stage, but should we now be depriving those who would benefit from the opportunity of the Bill being treated as a hybrid Bill? Should we be depriving them of the rights which the House gives in that way? We say that they should not be so deprived, whereas Labour Members say that they should be deprived. As I see it, that is the main difference between the two sides of the House.

Mr. Clemitson: I was making the point that there must be a time limit. The

time implicit in the Standing Orders is Second Reading.

Sir D. Renton: So far as the House is concerned, no time limit is laid down. There is no stage laid down at which, so to speak, the curtain falls. Surely it is in order for the House to refer a ruling of Mr. Speaker to the examiners at any stage before a Bill leaves the House. I am open to challenge on that, but that is the view I take.
Before I leave the remarks of the hon. Member for Luton, East, I take up his point about the use of the words "prima facie". Mr. Speaker, when ruling whether a Bill is or is not a hybrid Bill, has to rule that it is prima facie one way or the other. If he were merely to say "This is a hybrid Bill", that would prejudge the decision which has to be made by the examiners to whom we refer these matters. That is why, as a matter of form or of technicality, Mr. Speaker always rules on these occasions that it is prima facie a hybrid Bill. I could spend much more time answering the matters raised by the hon. Gentleman in his interesting speech, but I hope he will forgive me if I now pass on to my own remarks.
The Leader of the House may care to bear in mind the irony that today is the anniversary of the passing by Parliament of the Habeas Corpus Act 1679, which after Magna Carta was the greatest guarantee of personal fredom ever introduced by a parliamentary democracy.

Mr. Robert Hughes: rose——

Sir D. Renton: No, I am not giving way as I am taking too much time. How are the Government celebrating the glorious anniversary of habeas corpus? They are celebrating it in a most inglorious way by tabling the motion and asking the House to press it.
The rights given to our people under the hybrid Bill procedure have origins a few years older than even the Habeas Corpus Act. The rights of petitioners and the power of the House to deal with them were laid down in two resolutions of the Commons in 1669. If the House will bear with me, I shall read them as they are short and relevant to the debate. The first resolution states
That it is an inherent right of every commoner in England to prepare and present petitions to the House of Commons in case of


grievance, and the House of Commons to receive the same.
The second resolution states
That it is an undoubted right and privilege of the Commons to judge and determine "—
I emphasise "judge and determine"—
touching the nature and matter of such petitions, how far they are fit and unfit to be received.
Flowing from that, the House decided in addition to its ordinary legislative process, which was internal to the House itself and in which only Members of both Houses of Parliament could take part, that there should be the further judicial process for the hearing of petitions. That became the foundation for our Private Bill procedure and in that way for our hybrid Bill procedure.
I am afraid that the latest edition of "Erskine May" is in such short supply owing to today's demand that I have had to use my own old copy, which was published when Sir Barnett Cocks was editor. I understand that the sentence I am about to read has been written into "Erskine May" for some years. and I expect it still to be there. The sentence is of great constitutional importance and the quotation is very short. [Interruption.] Perhaps I may have the attention of the hon. Member for Walton to whose speech I listened with great interest.

Mr. Heffer: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has asked for my attention. I was not speaking to anyone. I was listening to the right hon. and learned Gentleman as carefully as I could.

Sir D. Renton: I apologise most sincerely to the hon. Gentleman. I should have looked five degrees to his left or to his right. I am most grateful to him for his intervention.
"Erskine May" states:
The separation of legislative and judicial functions is a refinement in the principles of political government and jurisprudence which can only be the result of an advanced civilisation.
I say to the Leader of the House that it is a sad fact that the Government seem to have such a pride in pursuing the many proposals in their manifesto—and they make Parliament the instrument of their proposals—that for party political reasons of their own they are flouting the hard

won principles of parliametary democracy which I have described and which have been described more eloquently today by others. They do not seem to want to retain the "advanced civilisation" to which I have referred. State ownership and control, more and more of it all the time at any price—I note that Labour Members nod in agreement—are what matter to them, not parliamentary democracy.

Mr. Flannery: The shareholders matter to the right hon. and learned Gentleman.

Sir D. Renton: There is a petition behind Mr. Speaker's chair from Mr. Mann. I do not know whether he is an ex-shipyard worker, but he might well be. I should not have thought it beyond the bounds of possibility that even the widows of shipyard or aircraft workers might wish to present petitions. Are we to take it that if they were to do so the rights that Parliament has given them must be flouted in order that Socialism may take its course?
The Government have obviously got their priorities wrong. They put the interests of socialistic nationalisation higher than the principles of parliamentary democracy. They want their Bill so much that they are prepared to cast aside the rights of minorities outside and the rules of Parliament, and although they have to accept Mr. Speaker's ruling they are prepared to table a motion to nullify it. So much for the principles!
I come back to the facts. I turn again to the speech made by the hon. Member for Luton, East. The facts were known or could or should have been known to the Government before the Bill was drafted. The Government persuaded American investors, in order to retain or to create employment on Clydeside, to come to the rescue of Upper Clyde Shipbuilders. But the Americans as we all know and as the Government have freely admitted, made it a condition that Marathon Shipbuilders (UK) Limited, in which the money was invested, would not be nationalised. That was why Marathon could not be included in Schedule 2. That was one of the reasons that made the Bill a hybrid Bill.
But it was not until Mr. Mann's petition was put into the Bag behind Mr. Speaker's Chair this week by my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr.


Maxwell-Hyslop, to whom great credit is due for having explored this admittedly complex situation and dragged the truth of the matter to the attention of the House, that the House and, indeed, Mr. Speaker were seized of the position. But the Government knew or could or should have known from the very beginning. They are the last people who should now be asking us to act in collusion with them to alter the situation which they created. They are asking us to join them in changing the rules at half-time.
I am sure that the Leader of the House will not mind my saying that it is his duty to apply Standing Orders and to get them changed if there is a general consensus in favour of change. The hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson), who is not in his place—I do not complain of that; he has listened to a great deal of the debate—said that changes were often made by majorities. But that is not my experience. The changes that have been made in Standing Orders have followed either formerly a Speaker's Conference or more recently a decision of the Procedure Committee, and when they have been made they have generally been made without Divisions. [An HON. MEMBER: "Not always."] Not always, I agree. But most important changes have been made without Divisions. I am sure that the hon. Member for Walton will bear me out that when he and I served on the Committee for the Revision of Standing Orders there was never a Division. Admittedly, we were dealing with detail to a great extent.
It is also the duty of the Leader of the House, as he knows, to uphold the traditions and dignity of the House and the rulings given by Mr. Speaker. The right hon. Gentleman can perform his duty as Leader of the House only if he is conciliatory to all parties in the House, tries to understand them, tries to meet their wishes as far as possible and remains conciliatory and calm. But I must in all candour say—I deeply regret it, because I regard him, not in the parliamentary sense but in another sense, as an old friend—that he displayed his annoyance unreasonably yesterday in, for him, an uncharacteristic way, and certainly contrary to the traditions of the Leadership of the House. Therefore, I hope that when he replies to the debate tonight he

will try to re-establish himself in the minds of all those who cherish our parliamentary democracy.

8.34 p.m.

Mr. Doug Hoyle: I have to rub my eyes to make sure that I am in a real world, after listening to some of the speeches from Opposition Members, particularly that of the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton). What we are talking about is a real world, in which people live and want to be employed—not about the technicalities of a minor matter of whether a word refers to a ship or a rig. That is what all this fuss is about.
What has happened in the House today is really a charade. It is the kind of thing that brings this House into disrespect on the part of the public. They are not bothered about this matter. What they are concerned about is why many of us have had 58 Sittings of a Committee—the largest number of Sittings ever—and taken all that time to consider the nationalisation of the shipbuilding and aerospace industries, only to say at the end that it comes to naught because of a minor point such as that which was raised yesterday.

Mr. Tebbit: Minor?

Mr. Hoyle: Very minor, indeed. Of course it is minor. The real objective of the Opposition is to hold up the Bill. They want to prevent it from going forward in the hope that in another 12 months' time they can prevent these two vital industries passing into public ownership. The Opposition believe that there might be a change of Government. They are very hopeful. We were warned that they might try to prevent these industries passing into the hands of the public. That is what the whole argument is about.
We know that the Opposition are not in touch with the workers in these industries. They are in touch with the directors, the shareholders, those people who have put all the advertisements in the national Press, and those who have had dinners in this House, and they have done all that they possibly can to prevent the progress of the Bill. But the Opposition are certainly not in touch with the workers. I speak as the vice-president


of one of the unions involved. Union representatives have been to see me on this matter. Even those of them who do not support the Labour Party politically, those of them who would regard themselves as Tory trade unionists, perhaps, are condemning the actions taking place on the Opposition Benches. The Opposition will not win any votes in this way, because while this is going on——

Sir David Renton: rose——

Mr. Hoyle: No. I shall not give way. You have spoken for far too long, and there are other hon. Members who wish to speak in the debate. You said that you would not speak for long, but you were on your feet for 20 minutes.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Godman Irvine): Order. I have not even been in the Chair for 20 minutes.

Mr. Hoyle: I was saying that to the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire, with due respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because he took quite a time in addressing the House and we all listened to him most carefully, so we are fully aware of what he said.
I am speaking for the people in the shipbuilding industry itself, and that is the important thing. While the Opposition are continuing to hold up progress on the Bill, in the shipbuilding industry there is a danger of more unemployment and of yards going out of business because of the uncertainty that surrounds the industry.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: What about Greenwells?

Mr. Hoyle: We know that private investment in this industry is being withdrawn into more profitable sections, at the expense of the yards being taken into public ownership. That is the position. While that uncertainty remains the people know—they talk to us—that their jobs are at stake.
In the aerospace industry a similar position of uncertainty remains. What are the projects that will go ahead? While these discussions are taking place in the House this evening, the French are trying to make hay with the Americans at the expense of the British aerospace industry. That is not the fault of the committee that has been set up to run

that industry. Indeed, a large part of the blame for the situation rests with the two airframe manufacturers themselves, for not seizing the opportunity that exists.

Mr. Tebbit: I think that in fairness the hon. Gentleman would want to remind the House that there had been no instance of the French and the Americans collaborating on any project at all. In fact, it was the British and the French who collaborated all the time—until nationalisation was brought forward in this House. From then onwards the French, knowing that the industry would be wrecked by nationalisation, went to do business with the private enterprise manufacturers in the United States. The sooner the hon. Gentleman drops this ridiculous nonsense, the sooner we shall get back to being able to do a decent deal with our American partners.

Mr. Hoyle: I do not accept one word of what the hon. Gentleman said. It is the publicly-owned side of the French aircraft industry that is going across to America. While that has been going on, what have the airframe manufacturers been doing? My concern is not with the directors and the shareholders in those industries, but with the workers, and I fear for their jobs unless we get the Bill on the statute book.

Mr. Ron Thomas: Would my hon. Friend be surprised to learn that I have a copy of a telegram sent by a well-known active Tory trade unionist in Bristol, who is Secretary of the Joint Staff Unions Committee of BAC? The telegram was sent to the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition this morning. and, in essence it said: "Show statesmanship and get the Bill on the statute book without further delay".

Mr. Hoyle: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for producing that evidence, which backs up the representations that have been made to us by the trade unions.

Mr. Tebbit: He is the chap to whom the hon. Gentleman will sell his council house.

Mr. Hoyle: That is a cheap remark. Is that the best that can be offered from the Opposition Benches when the jobs of the people are at stake? The people who work in these industries should be


here. They would know who their friends are.
At the end of the day, all the credit will go to my right hon. Friend the Lord President for putting the interests of the workers in the shipbuilding and aerospace industries before a minor procedural matter that threatens to hold up a Bill designed to safeguard their livelihood.

8.42 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: In opening the debate the Secretary of State made great play with the words "hairline hybridity" and referred to the "narrowest of technicalities". That is where the division lies between the Government and the Opposition. The Government are saying that they must put right the technicalities, whereas the Opposition are saying that the technicalities underlie the principle of parliamentary democracy.
The Secretary of State said that no new civil aircraft project had been put forward in the past two years, and that one reason why the Government were moving the motion was their great concern for the jobs of employees. Both the lack of new civil aircraft projects and the threat to the jobs of employees stem directly from the threat of nationalisation.
The Secretary of State also spoke about the lengthening dole queues. The Prime Minister said today that even if the Bill were passed into law there would be much rationalisation. That, perhaps, is a phrase to bemuse the Left wing, because much rationalisation means fewer jobs. Perhaps he thought he could kid the Left wing on that. The Secretary of State adduced in evidence a paid servant of the organising committee, who said that this was the right sort of thing to do. What else would a creature of the Minister who appointed him say? Then we heard that the Inland Revenue thought that it was right. To adduce such evidence is rather like saying that the KGB is in favour of package tours to Siberia.
I shall sum up all that lay behind the speech of the Secretary of State for Industry. It was his opening shot in the battle to succeed as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. The House will recognise that.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) based his case on the argument that so far all the challenges on the question of hybridity have come before Second Reading. The hon. Member for Luton, East (Mr. Clemitson) said the same thing. I submit that that is rather like a patient, visiting the doctor for some sort of diagnosis, who is then operated upon and opened up. That is the same as the Committee stage. The surgeon finds something wrong and tells the patient that nothing can be done, since it should have been discussed before he was opened up. That is the basis of the case of the hon. Member for Walton.
The correct argument is that which was put forward by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith). It is a matter of the supremacy of Parliament and the rule of law. I have always voted against the televising of Parliament, but it is a pity that the public could not see the crypto-Communists on the Government Benches laughing when my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East spoke of the rule of law.
The Bill has been declared hybrid, but the Government are now attempting to change the rules half-way through. Some unfair remarks and attacks were made about the Leader of the House yesterday. He was called a Fascist and leader of the Reichstag. That was most unfair. He is a distinguished constituent of mine, and living in a place like Hampstead he should know of the vast number of people who came there as refugees from Hitler, from the take-over of Poland and Hungary, after seeing their democratic Parliaments killed by changing the rules half-way through. It is therefore unfair that he should have been attacked yesterday and called a Fascist or leader of the Reichstag.
I have respected the right hon. Gentleman for many years. He used to appear on television as a proponent of parliamentary liberty and democracy, thundering forth in its defence. Next week he will go to Washington to be present at the presentation of a copy of the Magna Carta, which is to be on loan for one year. He will bask in the glory of this document.
The Secretary of State has listened to the references to the rule of law. But today and yesterday he acted in a worse manner than either King John or the barons over the signing of the Magna Carta. I do not want to be unfair to the Lord President, because tonight he will be supported in the Lobbies by other great democrats—the Home Secretary, the Paymaster-General, the Minister for Overseas Development and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. All are moderates and members of the Cabinet and they are supporting this attempt to put down the ruling of the House of Commons. Perhaps this is yet another step forward in the line that the moderates in the Cabinet are having to take.
In the case of Clay Cross the former Leader of the House changed the rules after the event. There is no difference between them. I am tired of those who talk of moderates. I said earlier that I looked upon the right hon. Gentleman as a champion of parliamentary rights. I did not think that he would go along with the sort of terminology used by the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) yesterday, when he spoke about mumbo-jumbo. I was taught at school a phrase that I remember:
His honour rooted in dishonour stood,
And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.
If the Lord President has any conscience, if he has any sense of duty to the House—not to his party—or in general to the minorities in the House, he will try even at this late moment to act as was suggested earlier and ask leave to withdraw the motion. If he does not—if he goes on acting as a biased Leader of the House—he will forfeit the confidence of all hon. Members, and will be acting as a commissar of a Socialist manifesto.

8.51 p.m.

Mr. John P. Mackintosh: It was not a very helpful speech that we have just heard from the hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. Finsberg). In fact, it was a rather squalid, simple speech which did not advance the argument. I hope that I shall succeed in convincing the hon. Gentleman and one or two other Opposition Members who have been shouting through the speeches that there are those of us on the Labour Benches who are as deeply concerned for parliamentary liberties as they are.

Some of us have made it our major business for many years—in my case for the decade that I have been a Member of the House—to do what we can to improve and enhance the power of the House over the Executive. It is in that light that I wish to look at this case.
The most helpful explanation I have heard of the origins of the whole problem came from my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heifer), who said that he knew, as a former Minister in the Department of Industry, that people in the Department had studied the Bill with great care to see whether it was hybrid. They had gone over it in detail. We all know the principles. They framed the Bill as any Government Department tries to frame a Bill to avoid its being hybrid—that is to say, it dealt with the rights of general categories. If the whole matter—the nationalisation of two industries—could have been dealt with on general principles and, the issue of private rights would not have arisen, because we should have accepted in the House that it was a fundamental political issue to be decided between the two parties at a General Election in the normal way and then put through the House.
Had there been no special exemptions, the question of private rights would not have arisen. No doubt people's private rights would have been affected, as happened with every nationalisation measure, but there would have been no special question of hybrid rights if this had been an across-the-board measure of nationalisation.
What happened at that point? The Government desired to exempt a particular yard. This matter has not been adequately brought out. Marathon was exempted because, I understand, a promise had been given to the American investor that if that company took over the yard on the Clyde there would be no question of nationalising the yard. I understand that it was a clear commitment by the Government.
Therefore, when the Government framed this nationalisation measure, instead of their framing it in general terms which would have avoided any question of the kind we are debating, a special method had to be found to exempt Marathon. The technique used, because Marathon was going to build oil rigs,


was to say that the Bill covered shipbuilding but not oil rigs. We are now having the debate about when an oil rig is a ship and when it is not. If anyone had told the drafters of the Bill that Marathon would build an oil rig which had a continuous hull, which could float along on its own and which might be described in Lloyd's Register as a ship, they would have rephrased the Bill to exclude that kind of oil rig.
The sole object was to deal not with ships or oil rigs but with Marathon. This problem has cropped up at a late stage because it has been discovered that an oil rig was built in such a fashion that it was defined as a ship. At this late stage Mr. Speaker gave a perfectly proper ruling that the Bill was then a hybrid Bill.
I am as concerned as any hon. Member in the House with the protection of the private rights of individuals and companies under Acts of Parliament or the procedures of the House. I felt that the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) made a good point in saying that we must protect the rights of minorities and special groups. If the Bill had been declared a hybrid Bill because of the Marathon situation at the very beginning and petitions had been heard, Marathon would not have petitioned because that company did not want to be included in the Bill. The procedure is arranged to allow for this, so that those who are discriminated against should be able to petition and to get the same treatment as others. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."]

Mr. Mackintosh: There would have been no petition from Marathon, which did not want it. All other shipbuilding firms would have been covered by the general proposition that the whole industry was to be nationalised and taken into public ownership. The procedure for hybrid Bills was not designed for them because they came within the general category. They were to be nationalised as a result of strong political conflict and a political decision. The hybrid procedure was designed to safeguard those, like Marathon, which were isolated for separate treatment, but in this case Marathon did not want to be separately treated.
The suggestion that other shipbuilding companies could have petitioned to get out of nationalisation is part of the political argument. They are entitled to act against proposals for nationalisation. It was a defence of private rights, the private rights of one particular company, but it applied only to the company which was excluded. At the time that company wanted to be excluded, although I do not know whether it still wants to be excluded.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: rose——

Mr. Mackintosh: The hon. Gentleman has spoken in the debate and has intervened on points that were raised. I respect his great contribution, but I should like to terminate as quickly as possible.
If the Bill had been a callous disregard of private rights, Marathon would have had a right to petition, but Marathon did not object to the Bill. We want to protect private rights, but we have to recognise the reality of what we are asked to protect. That is the extent of the infringement of private rights proposed by the late decision that this is a hybrid Bill, not because of the nature of the Bill but because of a failure to appreciate the kind of work that Marathon was doing at the time. It is for that reason that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House says that if given a chance he would rephrase the Bill, as he would have done at the beginning, had he known the circumstances, to include this particular area of activity.
Having tried to isolate the area of private right that is being damaged by the withdrawal or the failure to apply the hybrid Bill procedure in this House, I come to the second question. We all recognise that a mistake was made. Advice was given, or when the Bill was being drafted somebody did not know what Marathon was likely to do, otherwise it could have been excluded. Whoever was at fault, the Minister must take responsibility. Clearly, someone in the Department of Industry did not know that Marathon was to build a rig with a continuous hull and that the provision, which was carefully phrased to exclude Marathon did not do so. That undoubtedly remains a matter of ministerial responsibility.
We come to the third, most fundamental problem. I recognise that, because of the failure in drafting the Bill, Mr Speaker has been asked at this late stage to redefine the Bill, and he has said it is prima facie a hybrid Bill.
I respect Mr. Speaker's decision and think that it should deeply affect the conduct of the House. But the problem we must decide at this point is what we do with the procedures of the House in an unprecented situation. It is a situation in which, four-fifths of the way through a Bill, the Bill is redefined due to an early failure of drafting. I have pointed out that the issue does not deeply infringe private rights but creates a genuine problem of principle for Members of the House who are concerned about the House and whether this procedure could be followed again in respect of other Bills in other situations.
What do we do about this situation? I repeat that I am concerned about the rights of the House. Let me tell my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House why I was deeply concerned when I heard his announcement yesterday. Again, I emphasise that this is not the deep Magna Carta-type issue which many Opposition Members assert it to be. I am deeply disturbed because in recent years I have become worried about the erosion of powers in this House. I was deeply disturbed about the referendum, which I voted against.
I have been deeply disturbed at decisions arrived at between the Executive and powerful outside groups, because those decisions are reported to this House and we have to enforce them—[Interruption.] I was deeply concerned about the referendum because, although there had been a huge majority in the House on the Common Market issue, it was said that that was not good enough. Let us remember that the majority on the Floor of the House was 226 in favour of British membership. Although so many of us voted that way, we were told that it was not good enough.
I am also disturbed at the packing of Standing Committees of the House by subservient or uninterested Members, as a result of which people with an independence of mind are deliberately excluded in case they want to vote against the Government. This has happened on

many occasions. If a Standing Committee is appointed on a subject in which I am interested and on which I have undertaken some work, I know that I shall not be on it.
I was also disturbed when my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, in a previous incarnation, on the matter of Press freedom, said "Don't say anything in this House because you might upset the NUJ." He did not go to the NUJ and say to its members "Don't say anything that might upset some Members of Parliament." That is the kind of situation we face.
Therefore, I was disturbed yesterday when my right hon. Friend came to the House, slapped his notes on the Dispatch Box and said "This is prima facie a case involving a hybrid Bill. Therefore, we must overrule it, change the rules and get round it." I would rather my right hon. Friend had come to the House and said "This presents a major problem for the House." He could have said that, despite the fact that we hear a great deal of humbug expressed by Opposition Members on these topics, especially because in this case it involves the rights of one yard that did not mind being excluded. Although we have heard a lot of humbug from the Opposition, my right hon. Friend could have come to the House and said "A problem has occurred. Let us take it away to a Select Committee, withdraw the Bill, change it and come back with an agreed timetable so that the matter may proceed quickly through the House."
I am sorry that my right hon. Friend came to the Dispatch Box and virtually said "In these circumstances, the majority must win." That principle frightens me. There is one thing that has tempted me not to vote for my party tonight, although I shall do so—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I shall vote on the arguments I have made. [HON. MEMBERS: "Humbug."] The one thing that worries me is that some Labour Members say that, because these things are demanded by certain blocks of the electorate, they must go through whatever the procedure might be. The procedure of this House exists to defend the shipyard workers and aircraft industry workers. The procedure of this House exists to defend the freedom of our country.
Therefore, I hope that when my right hon. Friend replies to the debate he will be able to say that he will look at this matter and proceed in a manner that will safeguard progress and take account of the time and energy already put into the Bill, but also that he will recognise the procedural problems and do nothing to flout them.

9.5 p.m.

Sir John Eden: The hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) stands the argument about hybridity on its head. He certainly stood on its head the principle that he enunciated about the erosion of the rights of this House in terms of parliamentary democracy. The Government base their case on three assumptions. First, for the purposes of this Bill they do not accept that a "rig" is to be defined as a "ship". They claim that they do not challenge the ruling of Mr. Speaker but, nonetheless, they have been at pains to demonstrate that for the purposes of this Bill a rig is not to be regarded as a ship.
The second point they make is that employment prospects in this industry will be damaged unless the Bill is speedily assisted on to the statute book. Their third assumption is that whatever the precedents, procedures or practices of this House may be, the House tonight, if it so wishes, can decide to rescue the Government from their embarrassment.
In the few moments available to me I would briefly comment on those three assumptions. I read earlier today that the "Key Victoria" is now drilling off the coast of Zaire. How did it get there? Was it carried there? Did it walk? No, The answer is that it floated there. It was towed there and it floated there—and, for the purposes of this Bill, a "ship" means a floating or submersible vessel.
It was his realisation of the significance of this point, combined with his intimate knowledge of the Standing Orders of this House, which led my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) so brilliantly to make his submission to Mr. Speaker. It is true that there had been an undertaking to exclude Marathon from the Bill, but the purpose of the hybrid procedure was not just to protect those who wished to be excluded

from the Bill; it was to give an opportunity to those who might have been included within the terms of the Bill to make their representations before a Select Committee.
Secondly, whatever the arguments or doubts about the rig may be, in any case Marathon is shortly to be building ships, if it is not already doing so.
In respect of employment there is no urgency for this Bill. Nationalisation as such is not what is wanted. That has been made clear not least by all the employees of the Bristol Channel Ship Repairers Ltd. They said that
Nationalisation would drastically affect employment prospects in Welsh ports and endanger millions of pounds worth of exports.
What is wanted is not nationalisation, but an end to uncertainty. That can be brought about under existing legislation—a point that has already been made by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond), the Leader of the Liberal Party, and by others. By working with the companies concerned to prepare a nation-wide plan for the industry, and by determining the degree of Government support necessary to achieve it, the Government could end uncertainty in this industry tomorrow—an uncertainty largely precipitated and sustained by the proposal for nationalisation itself.
The third point on which the Government's case seems to rest is the one that causes me, and I am sure all hon. Members on the Opposition side, most anxiety. Ian Aitken, in his article in today's Guardian, opened with these words:
The future and perhaps the survival of the British shipbuilding industry hung in the balance last night".
What hangs in the balance today is the maintenance of free parliamentary democracy under this Government, not just for this one decision alone, important though that may be, but for the very reasons that the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian so eloquently suggested—that there has been an accumulation of matters, small in themselves but amounting, when taken as a whole, to a serious erosion of the rights of this House.
As The Times put it:
This is no mere procedural technicality. It is a matter of the denial of a right conferred by constitutional convention.


The right in a hybrid Bill situation is the right of any interest affected by proposals in such a Bill to have those views represented before a Select Committee of this House. The Standing Orders of this House have been designed as protection in just such a situation.
Of all the words spoken yesterday by the Leader of the House I found the most worrying those words that are often used these days by Ministers:
It is for the House to decide."—[Official Report, 26th May 1976; Vol. 912, c. 446.]
Those words worry me in the context in which the right hon. Gentleman used them. Those words worry me, too, in the context of the speech of the right hon. Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart), who, like so many of her kind—I say this with respect; I mean, like so many who hold views of her kind—advanced the case for the erosion of the rights of individuals by calling in aid the practices of a free institution.

Mrs. Hart: Is there anything in the speech that I made which in any way devalues the respect that I hold for the freedom of the individual? If not, will the right hon. Gentleman withdraw the remark that he just made?

Sir J. Eden: The whole tenor of the right hon. Lady's speech was that all that was necessary was for this House to decide tonight to get the Government out of their embarrassment.

Mrs. Hart: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am grateful for the fact that the right hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir J. Eden) gave me some notice that he would be speaking about my remarks, but he has now made certain imputations. He must either withdraw them or sustain them.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The imputations that I have heard seem to me to be merely matters of debate.

Sir J. Eden: When freedom is everywhere under attack, how necessary it is that we—long and rightly regarded in this House as its champions—should be assiduous in the observance of the rule of law, in both its spirit and its letter—the rule of law which is itself the only sure foundation of that freedom. We should not connive in a parliamentary stratagem that

seeks, in the words of the motion, to "dispense with" the Standing Orders of the House to suit ministerial and administrative convenience. That way lies the end of parliamentary democracy itself, and it is that end that, the country will note, so many hon. Members on the Government Benches seek to achieve.

9.15 p.m.

Mr. Michael Heseltine: I pay tribute first to my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) for what is without doubt one of the most remarkable Back Bench contributions since I have been in the House.
What is not in dispute tonight is your ruling, Mr. Speaker. You have quite clearly ruled in the case of the hybridity, or the prima facie hybridity, of the Bill that we are considering. The Bill is now prima facie a hybrid Bill. That means quite simply that the private rights of individual citizens might be affected by it. That is what it means.
The precise issue upon which it was raised with you, Mr. Speaker, was the exclusion of Marathon Shipbuilding (UK) Limited. The hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) was perfectly correct in drawing to our attention that it was the Government's decision—maybe following a decision of an earlier Government—that this particular company should be excluded which has led to the problem and to the drafting difficulties that the Minister and his Department face.
That is the source of the difficulty faced by the House—in other words, whether a company could and should be left out of a Public General Bill. That is the underlying issue. It does not matter why the company has been left out. It does not matter that only one has been left out. The fundamental issue is that by design one company, falling within the definition of all the other companies which are included in the Bill, has been left out.
It is not enough to say "We know that this company would not mind. It does not want to be included." By what arbitrary right has that one company been excluded when all the other companies listed in the schedule has been included? How, unless this issue is put before a Select Committee of the House, is that issue to be resolved?

Mr. Mackintosh: The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well why the company has been excluded. It came to this country only on the agreement that it would be excluded. There has been no argument about that.

Mr. Heseltine: I understand precisely the hon. Gentleman's point. It came to this country only on condition that it would not be nationalised. By what right did that one company do a deal which has excluded it from this Bill—a Bill which includes virtually every other company, each of which would have liked to be excluded if it had the chance?
The House must clearly understand that the purpose of hybridity, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) put it so clearly in his speech, is to recognise that there is no limit to the power of this House. We have no written constitution, and, because we therefore understand that we might do things in the generality of public policy which could have adverse effects upon individual private rights, we have traditionally over a long period had an established rule within this House to protect individuals who believe that they are adversely affected.
We have not said that they can refuse to obey the law. We have not said that they can remain outside the power of this House. What we have said is that, if we are to affect their private lives, we will limit our own power to this one extent and entitle them to come before a Select Committee of Members of this House so that their case may be heard. That is the issue we are discussing tonight.
Why should the companies listed in the Bill not have the right to have their case heard by a Select Committee of this House before we proceed? You have decided, Mr. Speaker, that the Bill entitles the companies listed in it to have their case put before examiners in order to decide whether such procedures should be adopted. That is your decision, Mr. Speaker, and it is the Government who have decided that the procedures should be set on one side.

Mr. Stainton: They are proposing it. It has not yet been decided.

Mr. Heseltine: My hon. Friend is right. They are proposing that these procedures should be set aside.
All the speeches on this side of the House, though regrettably very few from the Government Benches, have centred on the high issue of principle which is fundamental to this case. It is in no way relevant for hon. Members opposite, including the Secretary of State for Industry, who started them down this road, to say that this is only a little exception, that it is relatively unimportant, that it will not do anyone much harm or that the company which is being excluded does not mind. These are issues not of principle but only of degree of the effect of the legislation.
What the House is being asked to do is to establish a precedent in a situation which all hon. Members know to be unprecedented. There is no precedent for this circumstance. Therefore, we say that in the event of a similar circumstance arising in which there is not, as in this case, according to hon. Members opposite but not to us, a small infringement, a relatively unimportant prejudice of interest, but a large degree of infringement, the principle will nevertheless be identical to what we are dealing with now. Hon. Members on the Government side are prepared to see this precedent stand for all time.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) and the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian made the point that the Government do not accept the spirit of your ruling, Mr. Speaker. The Government do not admit that there was a difficult circumstance which, from respect for this place, should have brought them through one channel or another to a dialogue with hon. Members on both sides of the House, which is what a Leader of the House in all normal circumstances would have done. Instead, within seconds of your ruling having been given, the Leader of the House, on behalf of the Government, said that they were going to set it aside. They did that on the very day when the overwhelming majority of us, not 50 yards away from this place, listened to the Prime Minister echoing the great traditions which have made this nation's Parliament into the unique democratic institution that it is.
They ignored the possibility of even trying to find a solution with honour along the lines which have been suggested from both sides of the House.
This is, therefore, a matter of fundamental principle. We are dealing with the democratic rights and traditions of the House, and there is no escape from that clear situation. If the Government had wanted to challenge your ruling, Mr. Speaker, as you rightly pointed out on Tuesday there is a vehicle by which they could have done so. The Secretary of State today tried to suggest that he had got a lot of extra evidence or that more facts should be put before the House. That was an issue about the ruling itself. If that is what we are here to discuss, we should be discussing the ruling, but the Government have decided to accept the ruling while simply overturning it at the first convenient opportunity. That is a different matter from challenging the ruling itself.
The issue is therefore one of convenience, because the Government have found your ruling inconvenient, Mr. Speaker. The ruling would, of course, have made it difficult for them to proceed with the Bill at the speed they wished—that would suit me, and I make no apology for saying so. But we are not here dealing with the narrow convenience of the Government. We are dealing with the individual rights of citizens, and the Government's convenience should not put those rights in jeopardy.
It is on a matter of expediency rather than principle that hon. Members on the Government side are asked to vote tonight. I only hope that before they vote those who are parliamentarians before politicians will remember that the day could come when they will be sitting in circumstances with no majority in this House, and the precedent which the Leader of the House is asking them to establish tonight will be used to override rights which they think are important. That is the position in which they are putting themselves and all future Parliaments if they vote for this motion tonight.
There is a case about which we do not hear a great deal from the Secretary of State for Industry, and it is the only case he could have pleaded with honour. He could have said that the circumstances were now so overwhelmingly urgent in

the two industries which he is seeking to nationalise that, despite the issue of principle, the overriding interests of the nation and the industries concerned demanded that the legislation be proceeded with. I would never accept that argument for one moment, but it is the one which the Secretary of State should have spelt out in order to justify what he intends to do tonight.
How is it that the Government tell us now that the need for this legislation is a matter of national urgency when only a few months ago they introduced identical legislation and then withdrew it because it was inconvenient for them to proceed with it in the last Session? What has so deteriorated in that period? What new facts are there and what evidence has come to light which makes them prepared to elevate above principle the progress of this legislation, which a few months ago they withdrew to suit their own convenience?
We have now reached a situation in which the Secretary of State for Industry, like his predecessor, time and again is prepared to come to the House, with all the existing legislation at his power, and explain that he has to bail out this company, take over that company or nationalise another. He has done that with many companies from Ferranti to Court Line and to British Leyland one after another. He has the power to help companies where necessary, and yet we are now being asked to elevate expediency above principle in order to facilitate legislation designed to nationalise no less than 43 companies at an expense of £300 million, and all for the sake of helping a couple of ailing shipbuilding companies. There is no need for any additional legislation at all, except the narrow need of dogma of the Labour Party.
This is all the more extraordinary because only last Christmas the Secretary of State for Industry was prepared to hawk his conscience around the nation in order to prevent his colleagues from spending £162 million on bailing out Chrysler under existing legislation. Today, however, he is saying that he has not got the power to bail out any companies of any sort in these particular industries.
It is beyond credibility that the Government are now seriously claiming that they need to nationalise the aerospace industry in order to protect jobs and in


order to keep our position in the European airbus project. Only eight years ago they led this country out of the European airbus project, and the only reason why we are still in the project is because one company, which they are now proposing to nationalise, risked its own money to preserve workers' jobs and stay in. All it is getting for its trouble is that it is to be nationalised.
The Marathon company, which had the farsigntedness to say that it would not risk a penny piece unless it was left out of the Bill, is excluded, yet Hawker is not. Should not that situation be examined by the hybridity procedures of this House?
It is not just a question of the Secretary of State for Industry, because in reality the motion we are dealing with tonight is one which properly should have come from the Leader of the House. It is very curious that he has chosen to wind up the debate rather than introduce the motion, which appeared in his own name. I have never heard a speech from the Leader of the House with which I have agreed. But when he was a Back Bencher I never heard him make a speech which did not add to his reputation as a parliamentarian above that of a party politician. He is a man of great conviction. What he did not know was the extent to which that conviction could be moderated by tolerance for others' views. It is that tolerance, measured with the conviction, which is the hallmark of people who seek to lead this House. Tonight the right hon. Gentleman is about to throw away his lifetime's reputation.

9.30 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): The hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) began his speech with a reference to the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop), and I find it in my Back Bench heart to echo what he said. Many hon. Members have quoted remarks that I made in this House in previous incarnations—if that is the right word—and I dare say that I had better recall, before someone else does, that I said on one occasion that all was fair in love, war and parliamentary procedure. I say that to the hon. Member for Tiverton. It would be churlish of any of us not to pay a tribute to his

ingenuity and his assiduity in spite of all the inconvenience that he has caused to so many people. I pay tribute to him because all sections of the House must watch with the greatest care the pro. cedures of this House—[Interruption.] I hope that hon. Members will allow me to present my case. I certainly do not accept the view that the procedures of this House are unimportant, in any sense. I believe that many of our most essential freedoms are intimately linked with the procedures of the House.
In one sense it may be said that where-ever we sit, when it comes to the procedures of the House we are all in the same boat—or perhaps in the same mobile offshore drilling rig. We must seek to protect those freedoms in the best ways that we can. That is what I have said today, as I hope the House will permit me to explain.
I wish to underline a fact that I am sure that you will be ready to confirm, Mr. Speaker, which is that I have not in any way challenged your ruling. It would have been quite wrong of me to do so. Perhaps I can describe to the House exactly what happened in the discussions that I had with you and your advisers just before the debate yesterday. I went to see you to make representations, as others were making, and you indicated to me not a final decision, but the likely decision that you would make to the House. I then asked you whether you would give me your view about what would happen if we were to put down the kind of motion that is on the Order Paper now. [An HON. MEMBER: "Has Mr. Speaker given you permission?"] Yes, Mr. Speaker has given me his permission, so I hope that the hon. Gentleman will give me his. I wish to explain what happened, because it will dispose entirely of any accusation that I or the Government have challenged your ruling, Mr. Speaker, or been, in any sense, disrespectful to it.
I asked you, Mr. Speaker, whether, if we put on the Order Paper a motion of this character to deal with the situation that arose following your ruling, it could be regarded as a challenge to your ruling or disrespectful to you. Your answer was an immediate and unhesitating assurance that it would be nothing of the sort. You put that view in the presence of your advisers, with plenty of witnesses.
Several of those who report the affairs of the House have suggested that I was seeking in some way to challenge your ruling or to be disrespectful. That is now disposed of for ever by your statement.

Mr. Stainton: It was a private discussion.

Mr. Foot: I have Mr. Speaker's permission to announce it to the House. There is no question of there being a private discussion.
If your answer had been different, Mr. Speaker, I would not have made the same recommendations to my colleagues on how we should proceed.
We were left with the question of how to deal with the position left by your ruling. It was open to us to make a whole series of suggestions about the way in which the House should proceed.

Mr. Cormack: Will the right hon. Gentleman accept that many people will think that he is behaving in a disrespectful and cowardly manner when he seeks to take shelter behind a private conversation?

Mr. Foot: I do not think that it is necessary to answer such an interruption.
The Government and I had to decide—I do not wish to shuffle off any responsibility, because it was my recommendation that this motion should be put on the Order Paper—how to deal with the situation left by your ruling, Mr. Speaker.
As hon. Members in all parts of the House have acknowledged, we were dealing with an unprecedented situation. We had to decide how to weigh up the factors. The right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) presented the focus of the debate in his criticism of our judgment following Mr. Speaker's ruling. The right hon. Member argued that we should have taken into account the rights of the petitioners, who would be excluded if the hybridity procedures were overridden and the rights of the minorities in the House.
I acknowledge that these are some of the factors that ought to be taken into account, but there are other factors, according to the procedures of this

House, and I ask hon. Members to note this carefully.
My hon. Friend the Member for Luton, East (Mr. Clemitson) expounded this aspect of the case in a way to which the House must apply its mind. We are accused of bending or breaking the rules, but there is no rule to break or bend in this respect. As my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, East correctly said, Standing Orders do not refer to the unprecedented situation of the House having to deal with a ruling such as that given by Mr. Speaker at such a late stage in the progress of the Bill.

Mr. Heseltine: rose——

Mr. Foot: I shall give way in a moment, but I must first make this point. The fact of the matter is that Standing Order No. 38 deals with the situation exactly as my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, East described. It does not envisage this unprecedented situation or what would be the course proper to be taken if such a ruling were to be made in the circumstances of the case now before us. Why? Because the Standing Orders assume that if a Bill reached that stage it would be a very different state of affairs if it ever had to be referred to a Committee for hybridity. Why? Because the House at that stage would have voted on Second Reading in favour of the principle of the Bill. In response to the case of the right hon. Member for Sidcup, I say directly that the Government had to take into account the rights of minorities in the House, but we also had to take into account the rights of the majority of the House, as shown on Second Reading.

Mr. Heseltine: If for one moment we accept that there are no precedents and, therefore, the need to create a new rule for the House, will the Leader of the House give one precedent whereby such a new rule has been imposed on the House without any discussion with anyone in the House other than the majority party?

Mr. Foot: We are not seeking to impose a new rule; we are seeking to deal with an unprecedented situation. We are making a proposal to deal with it that does not set a precedent for future occasions. We are making a proposal that is specifically directed to this case,


as our words on the Order Paper describe. It is specifically directed to the consequences that would follow in the two industries concerned, and specifically arising from Mr. Speaker's ruling. I tell the right hon. Gentleman that we took into account the considerations to which he referred. It is perfectly right that those considerations should be taken into account, but I believe it also to be the case that having looked at the Standing Orders, having looked at the rules, and having looked at the unprecedented situation, we had to tell the House how we were to proceed.
I give another reason that led me to think that we had to take this course. If the matter had been referred to the examiners, and if it had gone to the Standing Committee or the Select Committee—it is more of a Standing Committee than a Select Committee, but whichever Committee hon. Members like to describe it as being—and through the whole of the procedure that has been described, it would have taken a very long time. Indeed, the right hon. Member for Sidcup suggested that the Bill should be withdrawn as a whole That, too, would have taken quite a long time. If we had withdrawn the Bill, or gone to the Procedure Committee, I do not say that those procedures would have meant an interminable delay, but there would have been a very great delay.
Any Government, or anyone responsible to the House of Commons. who voted for the Bill's Second Reading, had to take into account the fact that, there having been a Second Reading, and 58 Sittings in Committee, this House had urged that we should proceed with this business. There is talk of our overriding the rights of the House of Commons, but it is the Opposition who have done so.

Mr. Michael Brother: rose——

Mr. Foot: What they would have sought to do——

Mr. Brotherton: rose——

Mr. Speaker: Order. If the Minister does not give way, the hon. Gentleman must resume his seat.

Mr. Brotherton: Does the right hon. Gentleman therefore say that the Com-

mittee is more important than the Floor of the House of Commons?

Mr. Foot: If the hon. Gentleman had been following what I was saying as closely as I flatteringly assumed that he had been, he would have heard me say that one of the considerations that had to be taken into account was that the Bill had been through not only the Sittings upstairs, but Second Reading in this House, and that was an important relevant factor.

Mr. James Prior: As I understand it, the right hon. Gentleman is now saying that one of the factors that the Government had to take into consideration was that the Bill had had a Second Reading. I seem to remember that other Bills had Second Readings on the Floor of the House and the right hon. Gentleman had quite an affair in dealing with them and seeing that they did not get any further. The Parliament (No. 2) Bill was one. How can the right hon. Gentleman justify saying it for this Bill, but not for the others?

Mr. Foot: I am not seeking to supersede any procedure of this House. I am saying that this Bill, which started out as a Public Bill and which, in our genuine belief, was a Public Bill, had been accepted as a Public Bill by the House of Commons and by everyone concerned, right up to a point in the procedure that goes far beyond anything covered by Standing Order No. 38. It is precisely because of those circumstances that this is an unprecedented situation. Therefore, we had to discover a remedy that would properly suit the situation and would not deny to the majority in this House the right to get on the statute book a measure that had passed so many parts of its procedure in this House.
Not a single example could be quoted by either the right hon. Member for Sidcup or the Leader of the Liberal Party to substantiate their claim that in any sense at all we have interfered with the rules in the middle of this game. [Interruption.] This Bill started out as a Public Bill. It was accepted by all the authorities in the House as a Public Bill. It is still, in our opinion—[Interruption]. It is still, in our opinion and in the opinion of the majority of this House on Second Reading, a Bill that should


proceed as a Public Bill, but in view of Mr. Speaker's ruling it was necessary that we should take steps to put it in order.
We shall also take steps, as I indicated to the House yesterday—although I gather that there was a little noise going on at the time—to ensure the introduction of an amendment on Report which we believe will remove any element of doubt on the question of hybridity. [HON. MEMBERS: "Doubt?"] I understand that Mr. Speaker has ruled that there is doubt, and I accept that. If the House had listened a little more carefully to Mr. Speaker today it would have heard exactly what he said. Mr. Speaker did not say that this is a hybrid Bill. [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes, he did."] I am afraid that hon. Members have not followed the debate as closely as they should have done. What Mr. Speaker said again today was that the reason why he had ruled that this was a prima facie case of hybridity was that there was doubt. I say, as I said yesterday, that on Report we shall be able to remove that doubt by an amendment, if the House so wishes, and the House will be able to decide the matter.
I have no doubt that when again we proceed and allow the House to decide the matter, we shall have all the charges of dictation at the same time. What we are saying is that the House of Commons, at each stage, has the right to settle this matter. It is no good Opposition Members saying that we must abide by rules that do not exist in "Erskine May "or in any of the Standing Orders of the House of Commons.

Mr. Peyton: The right hon. Gentleman said just now that the Government had felt obliged to devise a remedy. They did so in a very precipitate manner. What I want to know is what kind of precedent the right hon. Gentleman thinks he is setting for the future, and whether he thinks that it will be generally acceptable.

Mr. Foot: One of the reasons why we have put the motion down in this form is that it does not set any precedent for the future. It sets a precedent only if one has exactly similar conditions relating to the two industries concerned, and we specifically refer to them in the motion. So the idea that this changes

the whole rule about hybrid Bills, or anything of that sort, is completely invalid.

Mr. Tebbit: The right hon. Gentleman says that there are no Standing Orders governing the business that we have before us in the circumstances in which we find ourselves, and that Standing Order No. 38 does not apply. Will he, therefore, say which are the Standing Orders relating to Private Business and the other such Standing Orders that the motion would dispense with?

Mr. Foot: The motion says
consideration of the application of any such Standing Orders
to this measure. What we say is perfectly clear. [HON. MEMBERS:" Answer."] Anyone who reads the Standing Orders for himself—and there must be very few hon. Members who have done that—will see that Standing Order No. 38——

Mr. Tebbit: Is that suspended?

Mr. Foot: Under the motion, if it is carried by the House, we say that "consideration of the application" of Standing Order No. 38 to this position will be dispensed with. We think that that is right, for the very reasons that I have described—that Standing Order No. 38, which has been invoked as the Standing Order to deal with this situation, does not deal with it at all.

Mr. Heseltine: If Standing Order No. 38 does not apply, why suspend it?

Mr. Foot: In order to be able to make quite clear to the House of Commons—[Interruption.] In order to be able to proceed with the Bill, which is necessary—[Interruption.] In order that the House of Commons should be able to proceed with this Bill and to introduce the amendment. [HON. MEMBERS: "Cheating."] The hon. Gentlemen who hurled that charge at me yesterday know perfectly well that it is false on every ground. They were called upon to withdraw it yesterday, and the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) withdrew it. But I suppose that Opposition Members think that they will get a few more cheap headlines in the Tory Press by yelling it again.
People talk about the reputation of this House of Commons, but some Opposition Members ought to have a little more regard for what will be the reputation of the House of Commons—[Interruption.] Nothing could do more injury to the House of Commons than for people outside to hear that the jobs of workers in the shipbuilding and aerospace industries are put in jeopardy by a semi-drunken Tory brawl. What the House of Commons should do—

Mr. Speaker: Order. In the few remaining minutes, I hope that the House will come to order.

Mr. Peyton: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I hope that you heard the remark made by the Leader of the House—[interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am listening to a point of order.

Mr. Peyton: I hope, Mr. Speaker, that you heard the audible remark made by the Leader of the House just now. I hope that you will order him to withdraw it, although it is typical of the kind of argument that we expect from him.

Hon Members: Withdraw.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I want to deal with the point of order. I know that the House will want to come to a decision on this matter in a few minutes. It is not in order to accuse anyone in this

place of being drunk. To a man in my position, to be semi-drunk is as bad as being drunk.

Hon. Members: Withdraw.

Mr. Foot: If you, Mr. Speaker, rule that being semi-drunk is as bad as being drunk, I suppose I have to withdraw. Yesterday, many Opposition Members tried to stop me speaking in the House when they were sober and tonight some have tried to stop me speaking when they are in a different condition, and that is perfectly parliamentary behaviour.
The right hon. Member for Yeovil tried to mislead the House as to what I said. He quoted some remarks that I made in the House on earlier occasions and tried to say that I was interfering with the rights of the House of Commons. The right hon. Gentleman quoted what he thought I said on 17th February 1972 about the procedures of the House. I believe that the procedures of the House are here to protect not only Members of Parliament but the people outside, to look after their jobs and make sure that when we present to the country measures for dealing with these problems we should be able to get them on to the statute book, and not be thwarted by the Conservative Party.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 303, Noes 303.

Division No. 156.]
AYES
[10.0 p.m.


Adley, Robert
Bryan, Sir Paul
Dodsworth, Geoffrey


Aitken, Jonathan
Buchanan-Smith, Alick
Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James


Alison, Michael
Budgen, Nick
Drayson, Burnaby


Amery, Rt Hon Julian
Bulmer, Esmond
du Cann, Rt Hon Edward


Arnold, Tom
Burden, F. A.
Dunlop, John


Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)
Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
Durant, Tony


Awdry, Daniel
Carlisle, Mark
Dykes, Hugh


Bain, Mrs Margaret
Carson, John
Eden, Rt Hon Sir John


Baker, Kenneth
Chalker, Mrs Lynda
Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)


Banks, Robert
Channon, Paul
Elliott, Sir William


Beith, A. J.
Churchill, W. S.
Emery, Peter


Bell, Ronald
Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)
Evans, Gwynfor (Carmarthen)


Bennett, Dr Reginald (Fareham)
Clark, William (Croydon S)
Ewing, Mrs Winifred (Moray)


Benyon, W.
Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Eyre, Reginald


Berry, Hon Anthony
Clegg, Walter
Fairgrieve, Russell


Biffen, John
Cockcroft, John
Farr, John


Biggs-Davison, John
Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)
Fell, Anthony


Blaker, Peter
Cope,John
Finsberg, Geoffrey


Body, Richard
Cordle, John H.
Fisher, Sir Nigel


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Cormack, Patrick
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles


Bottomley, Peter
Corrie, John
Fookes, Miss Janet


Bowden, A. (Brighton, Kemptown)
Costain, A. P.
Forman, Nigel


Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)
Craig, Rt Hon W. (Belfast E)
Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'f'd)


Bradford, Rev Robert
Crawford, Douglas
Fox, Marcus


Braine, Sir Bernard
Critchley, Julian
Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford &amp; St)


Brittan, Leon
Crouch, David
Freud, Clement


Brocklebank-Fowler, C.
Crowder, F. P.
Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.


Brotherton, Michael
Davies, Rt Hon J. (Knutsford)
Gardiner, George (Reigate)


Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Dean, Paul (N Somerset)
Gardner. Edward (S Fylde)




Gilmour, Rt Hon Ian (Chesham)
MacCormick, Iain
Ross, William (Londonderry)


Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)
McCrindle, Robert
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)


Glyn, Dr Alan
McCusker, H.
Rost, Peter (SE Derbyshire)


Godber, Rt Hon Joseph
Macfarlane, Neil
Royle, Sir Anthony


Goodhart, Philip
MacGregor, John
Sainsbury, Tim


Goodhew, Victor
Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)
St. John-Stevas, Norman


Goodlad, Alastair
McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)
Scott, Nicholas


Gorst, John
McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)
Scott-Hopkins, James


Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)
Madel, David
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)


Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)
Marshall, Michael (Arundel)
Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)


Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)
Marten, Neil
Shelton, William (Streatham)


Gray, Hamish
Mates, Michael
Shepherd, Colin


Grieve, Percy
Mather, Carol
Shersby, Michael


Griffiths, Eldon
Maude, Angus
Silvester, Fred


Grimond, Rt Hon J.
Maudling, Rt Hon Reginald
Sims, Roger


Grist, Ian
Mawby, Ray
Sinclair, Sir George


Grylls, Michael
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin
Skeet, T. H. H.


Hall, Sir John
Mayhew, Patrick
Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)


Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Smith, Dudley (Warwick)


Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)
Speed, Keith


Hampson, Dr Keith
Mills, Peter
Spence, John


Hannam, John
Miscampbell, Norman
Spicer, Jim (W Dorset)


Harrison, Col Sir Harwood (Eye)
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Spicer, Michael (S Worcester)


Harvie Anderson, Rt Hon Miss
Moate, Roger
Sproat, Iain


Hastings, Stephen
Molyneaux, James
Stainton, Keith


Havers, Sir Michael
Monro, Hector
Stanbrook, Ivor


Hawkins, Paul
Montgomery, Fergus
Stanley, John


Hayhoe, Barney
Moore, John (Croydon C)
Steel, David (Roxburgh)


Heath, Rt Hon Edward
More, Jasper (Ludlow)
Steen, Anthony (Wavertree)


Henderson, Douglas
Morgan, Geraint
Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)


Heseltine, Michael
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral
Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)


Hicks, Robert
Morris, Michael (Northampton S)
Stokes, John


Higgins, Terence L.
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
Stonehouse, Rt Hon John


Holland, Philip
Morrison, Hon Peter (Chester)
Stradling Thomas, J.


Hooson, Emlyn
Mudd, David
Tapsell, Peter


Hordern, Peter
Neave, Airey
Taylor, R. (Croydon NW)


Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey
Nelson, Anthony
Taylor, Teddy (Cathcart)


Howell, David (Guildford)
Neubert, Michael
Tebbit, Norman


Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)
Newton, Tony
Temple-Morris, Peter


Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)
Nott, John
Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret


Hunt, David (Wirral)
Onslow, Cranley
Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)


Hunt, John
Oppenheim, Mrs Sally
Thomas, Rt Hon P. (Hendon S)


Hurd, Douglas
Osborn, John
Thompson, George


Hutchison, Michael Clark
Page, John (Harrow West)
Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (N Devon)


Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)
Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)
Townsend, Cyril D.


James, David
Paisley, Rev Ian
Trotter, Neville


Jenkin, Rt Hon P.(Wanst'd &amp; W'df'd)
Pardoe, John
Tugendhat, Christopher


Johnson Smith, G. (E Grinstead)
Parkinson, Cecil
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Pattie, Geoffrey
Vaughan, Dr Gerard


Jones, Arthur (Daventry)
Penhaligon, David
Viggers, Peter


Jopling, Michael
Percival, Ian
Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)


Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith
Peyton, Rt Hon John
Wakeham, John


Kaberry, Sir Donald
Pink, R. Bonner
Walder, David (Clitheroe)


Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine
Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch
Walker, Rt Hon P. (Worcester)


Kershaw, Anthony
Price, David (Eastleigh)
Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek


Kilfedder, James
Prior, Rt Hon James
Wall, Patrick


Kilfeddcr, James
Pym, Rt Hon Francis
Walters, Dennis


Kimball, Marcus
Raison, Timothy
Warren, Kenneth


King, Evelyn (South Dorset)
Rathbone, Tim
Watt, Hamish


King, Tom (Bridgwater)
Rawlinson, Rt Hon Sir Peter
Weatherill, Bernard


Kirk, Sir Peter
Rees, Peter (Dover &amp; Deal)
Wells, John


Kitson, Sir Timothy
Rees-Davies, W. R.
Welsh, Andrew


Knox, David
Reid, George
Whitelaw, Rt Hon William


Lamont, Norman
Renton, Rt Hon Sir D. (Hunts)
Wiggin, Jerry


Lane, David
Renton, Tim (Mid-Sussex)
Wigley, Dafydd


Langford-Holt, Sir John
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)


Latham, Michael (Melton)
Ridley, Hon Nicholas
Winterton, Nicholas


Lawrence, Ivan
Ridsdale, Julian
Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton)


Lawson, Nigel
Rifkind, Malcolm
Younger, Hon George


Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey



Lloyd, Ian
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Loveridge, John
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)
Mr. Spencer le Marchant and Mr. Jim Lester.


Luce, Richard
Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)



McAdden, Sir Stephen
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)





NOES


Abse, Leo
Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Bishop, E. S.


Allaun, Frank
Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Blenkinsop, Arthur


Anderson, Donald
Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)
Boothroyd, Miss Betty


Archer, Peter
Bates. Alf
Boardman, H.


Armstrong, Ernest
Bean, R. E.
Booth, Rt Hon Albert


Ashley, Jack
Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood
Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur


Ashton, Joe
Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)
Boyden, James (Bish Auck)


Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)
Bidwell, Sydney
Bradley, Tom







Bray, Dr Jeremy
Grant, John (Islington C)
Molloy, William


Broughton, Sir Alfred
Grocott, Bruce
Moonman, Eric


Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)
Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)


Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)
Hardy, Peter
Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)


Buchan, Norman
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)


Buchanan, Richard
Hart, Rt Hon Judith
Moyle, Roland


Butler, Mrs Joyce (Wood Green)
Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy
Mulley, Rt Hon Frederick


Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)
Hatton, Frank
Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King


Callaghan, Jim (Middleton &amp; P)
Hayman, Mrs Helene
Newens, Stanley


Campbell, Ian
Healey, Rt Hon Denis
Noble, Mike


Canavan, Dennis
Heffer, Eric S.
Oakes, Gordon


Cant, R. B.
Hooley, Frank
Ogden, Eric


Carmichael, Neil
Horam, John
O'Halloran, Michael


Carter, Ray
Howell, Rt Hon Denis
Orbach, Maurice


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)
Orme, Rt Hon Stanley


Cartwright, John
Huckfield, Les
Ovenden, John


Castle, Rt Hon Barbara
Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)
Owen, Dr David


Clemitson, Ivor
Hughes, Mark (Durham)
Padley, Walter


Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)
Palmer, Arthur


Cohen, Stanley
Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Park, George


Coleman, Donald
Hunter, Adam
Parker, John


Colquhoun, Ms Maureen
Irvine, Rt Hon Sir A. (Edge Hill)
Parry, Robert


Concannon, J. D.
Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)
Pavitt, Laurie


Conlan, Bernard
Jackson, Colin (Brighouse)
Perry, Ernest


Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)
Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)
Phipps, Dr Colin


Corbett, Robin
Janner, Greville
Prentice, Rt Hon Reg


Cox, Thomas (Tooting)
Jay, Rt Hon Douglas
Prescott, John


Craigen, J. M. (Maryhill)
Jeger, Mrs Lena
Price, C. (Lewisham W)


Crawshaw, Richard
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Price, William (Rugby)


Cronin, John
Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Stechford)
Radice, Giles


Crosland, Rt Hon Anthony
John, Brynmor
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)


Cryer, Bob
Johnson, James (Hull West)
Richardson, Miss Jo


Cunningham, G. (Islington S)
Johnson, Walter (Derby S)
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Cunningham, Dr J. (Whiteh)
Jones, Barry (East Flint)
Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)


Dalyell, Tam
Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Robertson, John (Paisley)


Davidson, Arthur
Kaufman, Gerald
Robinson, Geoffrey


Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)
Kelley, Richard
Roderick, Caerwyn


Davies, Denzil (Lianelli)
Kerr, Russell
Rodgers, George (Chorley)


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Kilroy-Silk, Robert
Rooker, J. W.


Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)
Kinnock, Neil
Roper, John


Deakins, Eric
Lambie, David
Rose, Paul B.


Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)
Lamborn, Harry
Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilmarnock)


de Freitas, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey
Lamond, James
Rowlands Ted


Dempsey, James
Latham, Arthur (Paddington)
Sandelson, Neville


Doig, Peter
Leadbitter, Ted
Sedgemore, Brian


Dormand, J. D.
Lee,John
Selby, Harry


Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton &amp; Slough)
Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South)


Duffy, A. E. P.
Lever, Rt Hon Harold
Seldon, Robert (Ashton-u-Lyne)


Dunn, James A.
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Shore, Rt Hon Peter


Dunnett, Jack
Lipton, Marcus
Short, Rt Hon E. (Newcastle C)


Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth
Litterick, Tom
Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)


Eadie, Alex
Lomas, Kenneth
Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)


Edge, Geoff
Loyden, Eddie
Sillars, James


Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)
Luard, Evan
Silverman, Julius


Ellis, John (Brigg &amp; Scun)
Lyon, Alexander (York)
Skinner, Dennis


Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)
Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)
Small, William


English, Michael
Mabon, Dr J. Dickson
Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)


Ennals, David
McCartney, Hugh
Snape, Peter


Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)
McElhone, Frank
Spearing, Nigel


Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)
MacFarquhar, Roderick
Spriggs, Leslie


Evans, John (Newton)
McGuire, Michael (Ince)
Stallard, A. W.


Ewing Harry (Stirling)
Mackenzie, Gregor
Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham)


Faulds, Andrew
Mackintosh, John P.
Stoddart, David


Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.
Maclennan, Robert
Stott, Roger


Fitch, Alan (Wigan)
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)
Strang, Gavin


Fitt, Gerard (Belfast W)
McNamara, Kevin
Strauss, Rt Hn G. R.


Flannery, Martin
Madden, Max
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley


Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)
Magee, Bryan
Swain, Thomas


Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Maguire, Frank (Fermanagh)
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)


Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Mahon, Simon
Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)


Ford, Ben
Mallalieu, J. P. W.
Thomas, Mike (Newcastle E)


Forrester, John
Marks, Kenneth
Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)


Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)
Marquand, David
Thorne, Stan (Preston South)


Fraser, John (Lambeth,N'w'd)
Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)
Tierney, Sydney


Freeson, Reginald
Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)
Tinn, James


Garrett, John (Norwich S)
Mason, Rt Hon Roy
Tomlinson, John


Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)
Maynard, Miss Joan
Tomney, Frank


George, Bruce
Meacher, Michael
Torney, Tom


Gilbert, Dr John
Mellish, Rt Hon Robert
Tuck, Raphael


Ginsburg, David
Mendelson, John
Urwin, T. W.


Golding, John
Mikardo, Ian
Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.


Gould, Bryan
Millan, Bruce
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)


Gourlay, Harry
Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)
Walden, Brian (B'ham, L'dyw'd)


Graham, Ted
Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Grant, George (Morpeth)
Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)







Ward, Michael
Whitlock, William
Wise, Mrs Audrey


Watkins, David
Willey, Rt Hon Frederick
Woodall, Alec


Watkinson, John
Williams, Alan (Swansea W)
Woof, Robert


Weetch, Ken
Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch)
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Weitzman, David
Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)
Young, David (Bolton E)


Wellbeloved, James
Williams, Sir Thomas



White, Frank R. (Bury)
Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


White, James (Pollok)
Wilson, Rt Hon H. (Huyton)
Mr. Joseph Harper and Mr. James Hamilton.


Whitehead, Phillip
Wilson, William (Coventry SE)

Mr. Speaker: I am following the precedent laid down by Mr. Speaker Denison, a precedent which has been followed to this time. He said that the principle of the Question upon which he was called upon to give his casting vote was one of great importance, and, if affirmed by a majority of the House, it would have much force. It should, however, be affirmed by a majority of the

House, and not merely by the casting vote of its presiding officer. For these reasons, my vote has to go with the Noes and I declare that the Noes have it.

Question accordingly negatived.

Main question put:—

The House divided: Ayes 304, Noes 303.

Division No. 157.]
AYES
[10.17 p.m.


Abse, Leo
Cunningham, Dr J. (Whiteh)
Hart, Rt Hon Judith


Allaun, Frank
Dalyell, Tam
Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy


Anderson, Donald
Davidson, Arthur
Hatton, Frank


Archer, Peter
Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)
Hayman, Mrs Helene


Armstrong, Ernest
Davies, Denzil (Llanelli)
Healey, Rt Hon Denis


Ashley, Jack
Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Heffer, Eric S.


Ashton, Joe
Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)
Hooley, Frank


Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)
Deakins, Eric
Horam, John


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)
Howell, Rt Hon Denis


Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
de Freitas, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey
Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)


Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)
Dempsey, James
Huckfield, Les


Bates, Alf
Doig, Peter
Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)


Bean, R. E.
Dormand, J. D.
Hughes, Mark (Durham)


Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood
Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)


Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)
Duffy, A. E. P.
Hughes, Roy (Newport)


Bidwell, Sydney
Dunn, James A.
Hunter, Adam


Bishop, E. S.
Dunnett, Jack
Irvine, Rt Hon Sir A. (Edge Hill)


Blenkinsop. Arthur
Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth
Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)


Boardman, H.
Eadie, Alex
Jackson, Colin (Brighouse)


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
Edge, Geoff
Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)


Boothroyd, Miss Betty
Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)
Janner, Greville


Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur
Ellis, John (Brigg &amp; Scun)
Jay, Rt Hon Douglas


Boyden, James (Bish Auck)
Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)
Jeger, Mrs Lena


Bradley, Tom
English, Michael
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)


Bray, Dr Jeremy
Ennals, David
Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Stechford)


Broughton, Sir Alfred
Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)
John, Brynmor


Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)
Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)
Johnson, James (Hull West)


Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)
Evans, John (Newton)
Johnson, Walter (Derby S)


Buchan, Norman
Ewing Harry (Stirling)
Jones, Barry (East Flint)


Buchanan, Richard
Faulds, Andrew
Jones, Dan (Burnley)


Butler, Mrs Joyce (Wood Green)
Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.
Kaufman, Gerald


Casllaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)
Fitch, Alan (Wigan)
Kelley, Richard


Callaghan, Jim (Mlddleton &amp; P)
Fitt, Gerard (Belfast W)
Kerr, Russell


Campbell, Ian
Flannery, Martin
Kilroy-Silk, Robert


Canavan, Dennis
Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)
Kinnock, Neil


Cant, R. B.
Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Lambie, David


Carmichael, Neil
Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Lamborn, Harry


Carter, Ray
Ford, Ben
Lamond, James


Carter-Jonas, Lewis
Forrester, John
Latham, Arthur (Paddington)


Cartwright, John
Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin
Leadbitter, Ted


Castle, Rt Hon Barbara
Fraser, John (Lambeth,N'w'd)
Lee, John


Clemitson, Ivor
Freeson, Reginald
Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton &amp; Slough)


Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)
Garrett, John (Norwich S)
Lever, Rt Hon Harold


Cohen, Stanley
Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)


Coleman, Donald
George, Bruce
Lipton, Marcus


Colquhoun, Ms Maureen
Gilbert, Dr John
Litterick, Tom


Concannon, J. D.
Ginsburg, David
Lomas, Kenneth


Conlan, Bernard
Golding, John
Loyden, Eddie


Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)
Gould, Bryan
Luard, Evan


Corbett, Robin
Gourlay, Harry
Lyon, Alexander (York)


Cox, Thomas (Tooting)
Graham, Ted
Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)


Craigen, J. M. (Maryhill)
Grant, George (Morpeth)
Mabon, Dr J. Dickson


Crawshaw, Richard
Grant, John (Islington C)
McCartney, Hugh


Cronin, John
Grocott, Bruce
McElhone, Frank


Crosland, Rt Hon Anthony
Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)
MacFarquhar, Roderick


Cryer, Bob
Hardy, Peter
McGuire, Michael (Ince)


Cunningham, G. (Islington S)
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Mackenzie, Gregor




Mackintosh, John P.
Pendry, Tom
Swain, Thomas


Maclennan, Robert
Perry, Ernest
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)


McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)
Phipps, Dr Colin
Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)


McNamara, Kevin
Prentice, Rt Hon Reg
Thomas, Mike (Newcastle E)


Madden, Max
Prescott, John
Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)


Magee, Bryan
Price, C. (Lewisham W)
Thorne, Stan (Preston South)


Maguire, Frank (Fermanagh)
Price, William (Rugby)
Tierney, Sydney


Mahon, Simon
Radice, Giles
Tinn, James


Mallalieu, J. P. W.
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)
Tomlinson, John


Marks, Kenneth
Richardson, Miss Jo
Tomney, Frank


Marquand, David
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Torney, Tom


Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)
Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)
Tuck, Raphael


Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)
Robertson, John (Paisley)
Urwin, T. W.


Mason, Rt Hon Roy
Robinson, Geoffrey
Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.


Maynard, Miss Joan
Roderick, Caerwyn
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)


Meacher, Michael
Rodgers, George (Chorley)
Walden, Brian (B'ham, L'dyw'd)


Mellish, Rt Hon Robert
Rodgers, William (Stockton)
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Mendelson, John
Rooker, J. W.
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)


Mikardo, Ian
Roper, John
Ward, Michael


Millan, Bruce
Rose, Paul B.
Watkins, David


Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)
Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilmarnock)
Watkinson, John


Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)
Rowlands, Ted
Weetch, Ken


Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)
Sandelson, Neville
Weitzman, David


Molloy, William
Sedgemore, Brian
Wellbeloved, James


Moonman, Eric
Selby, Harry
White, Frank R. (Bury)


Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South)
White, James (Pollok)


Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)
Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-u-Lyne)
Whitehead, Phillip


Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)
Shore, Rt Hon Peter
Whitlock, William


Moyle, Roland
Short, Rt Hon E. (Newcastle C)
Willey, Rt Hon Frederick


Mulley, Rt Hon Frederick
Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)
Williams, Alan (Swansea W)


Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King
Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)
Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch)


Newens, Stanley
Sillars, James
Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)


Noble, Mike
Silverman, Julius
Williams, Sir Thomas


Oakes, Gordon
Skinner, Dennis
Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)


Ogden, Eric
Small, William
Wilson, Rt Hon H. (Huyton)


O'Halloran, Michael
Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)
Wilson, William (Coventry SE)


Orbach, Maurice
Snape, Peter
Wise, Mrs Audrey


Orme, Rt Hon Stanley
Spearing, Nigel
Woodall, Alec


Ovenden, John
Spriggs, Leslie
Woof, Robert


Owen, Dr David
Stallard, A. W.
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Padley, Walter
Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham)
Young, David (Bolton E)


Palmer, Arthur
Stoddart, David



Park, George
Stott, Roger
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Parker, John
Strang, Gavin
Mr. James Hamilton and Mr. Joseph Harper.


Parry, Robert
Strauss, Rt Hn G. R.



Pavitt, Laurie
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley





NOES


Adley, Robert
Carson, John
Fairgrieve, Russell


Aitken, Jonathan
Chalker, Mrs Lynda
Farr, John


Alison, Michael
Channon, Paul
Fell, Anthony


Amery, Rt Hon Julian
Churchill, W. S.
Finsberg, Geoffrey


Arnold, Tom
Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sulton)
Fisher, Sir Nigel


Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)
Clark, William (Croydon S)
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles


Awdry, Daniel
Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Fookes, Miss Janet


Bain, Mrs Margaret
Clegg, Walter
Forman, Nigel


Baker, Kenneth
Cockcroft, John
Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'f'd)


Banks, Robert
Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)
Fox, Marcus


Beith, A. J.
Cope, John
Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford &amp; St)


Bell, Ronald
Cordle, John H.
Freud, Clement


Bennett, Dr Reginald (Fareham)
Cormack, Patrick
Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.


Benyon, W.
Corrie, John
Gardiner, George (Reigate)


Berry, Hon Anthony
Costain, A. P.
Gardner, Edward (S Fylde)


Biffen, John
Craig, Rt Hon W. (Belfast E)
Gilmour, Rt Hon Ian (Chesham)


Biggs-Davison, John
Crawford, Douglas
Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)


Blaker, Peter
Critchley, Julian
Glyn, Dr Alan


Body, Richard
Crouch, David
Godber, Rt Hon Joseph


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Crowder, F. P.
Goodhart, Philip


Bottomley, Peter
Davies, Rt Hon J. (Knutsford)
Goodhew, Victor


Bowden, A. (Brighton, Kemptown)
Dean, Paul (N Somerset)
Goodlad, Alastair


Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)
Dodsworth, Geoffrey
Gorst, John


Bradford, Rev Robert
Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)


Braine, Sir Bernard
Drayson, Burnaby
Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)


Brittan, Leon
du Cann, Rt Hon Edward
Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)


Brocklebank-Fowler, C.
Dunlop, John
Gray, Hamish


Brotherton, Michael
Durant, Tony
Grieve, Percy


Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Dykes, Hugh
Griffiths, Eldon


Bryan, Sir Paul
Eden, Rt Hon Sir John
Grimond, Rt Hon J.


Buchanan-Smith, Alick
Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Grist, Ian


Budgen, Nick
Elliott, Sir William
Grylls, Michael


Bulmer, Esmond
Emery, Peter
Hall, Sir John


Burden, F. A.
Evans, Gwynfor (Carmarthen)
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.


Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
Ewing, Mrs Winifred (Moray)
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)


Carlisle, Mark
Eyre, Reginald
Hampson, Dr Keith







Hannam, John
Maude, Angus
Scott-Hopkins, James


Harrison, Col Sir Harwood (Eye)
Maudling, Rt Hon Reginald
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)


Harvie Anderson, Rt Hon Miss
Mawby, Ray
Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)


Hastings, Stephen
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin
Shelton, William (Streatham)


Havers, Sir Michael
Mayhew, Patrick
Shepherd, Colin


Hawkins, Paul
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Shersby, Michael


Hayhoe, Barney
Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)
Silvester, Fred


Heath, Rt Hon Edward
Mills, Peter
Sims, Roger


Henderson, Douglas
Miscampbell, Norman
Sinclair, Sir George


Heseltine, Michael
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Skeet, T. H. H.


Hicks, Robert
Moate, Roger
Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)


Higgins, Terence L.
Molyneaux, James
Smith, Dudley (Warwick)


Holland, Philip
Monro, Hector
Speed, Keith


Hooson, Emlyn
Montgomery, Fergus
Spence, John


Hordern, Peter
Moore, John (Croydon C)
Spicer, Jim (W Dorset)


Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey
More, Jasper (Ludlow)
Spicer, Michael (S Worcester)


Howell, David (Guildford)
Morgan, Geraint
Sproat, Iain


Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral
Stainton, Keith


Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)
Morris, Michael (Northampton S)
Stanbrook, Ivor


Hunt, David (Wirral)
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
Stanley, John


Hunt, John
Morrison, Hon Peter (Chester)
Steel, David (Roxburgh)


Hurd, Douglas
Mudd, David
Steen, Anthony (Wavertree)


Hutchison, Michael Clark
Neave, Airey
Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)


Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)
Nelson, Anthony
Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)


James, David
Neubert, Michael
Stokes, John


Jenkin, Rt Hon P.(Wanst'd &amp; W'df'd)
Newton, Tony
Stonehouse, Rt Hon John


Johnson Smith, G. (E Grinstead)
Nott, John
Stradling Thomas, J


Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Onslow Cranley
Tapsell, Peter


Jones, Arthur (Daventry)
Oppenheim Mrs Sally
Taylor, R. (Croydon NW)


Jones, Arthur (Daventry)
Osborn, John
Taylor, Teddy (Cathcart)


Jopling, Michael
Page, John (Harrow West)
Tebbit, Norman


Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith
Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)
Temple-Morris, Peter


Kaberry, Sir Donald
Paisley, Rev Ian
Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret


Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine
Pardoe, John
Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)


Kershaw, Anthony
Pattie, Geoffrey
Thomas,Rt Hon P. (Hendon S)


Kilfedder, James
Penhaligon, David
Thompson, George


Kimball, Marcus
Percival, Ian
Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (N Devon)


King, Evelyn (South Dorset)
Peyton, Rt Hon John
Townsend, Cyril D.


King, Tom (Bridgwater)
Pink, R. Bonner
Trotter, Neville


Kirk, Sir Peter
Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch
Tugendhat, Christopher


Kitson, Sir Timothy
Price, David (Eastleigh)
van Straubenzee, W.R.


Knox, David
Prior Rt Hon James
Vaughan Dr Gerard


Lamont, Norman
Pym, Rt Hon Francis
Viggers, Peter


Lane, David
Raison, Timothy
Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)


Langford-Holt, Sir John
Rathbone, Tim
Wakeham, John


Latham, Michael (Melton)
Rawlinson Rt Hon Sir Peter
Walder David (Clitheroe)


Lawrence, Ivan
Rees, Peter (Dover &amp; Deal)
Walker, Rt Hon P. (Worcester)


Lawson, Nigel
Rees-Davies, W. R.
Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek


Lester, Jim (Beeston)
Reid, George
Wall, Patrick


Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Ronton, Rt Hon Sir D. (Hunts)
Walters, Dennis


Lloyd, Ian
Renton, Tim (Mid-Sussex)
Warren, Kenneth


Loveridge, John
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Watt, Hamish


Luce, Richard
Ridley, Hon Nicholas
Weatherill, Bernard


McAdden, Sir Stephen
Ridsdale, Julian
Wells, John


MacCormick, Iain
Rifkind, Malcolm
Welsh, Andrew


McCrindle, Robert
Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey
Whitelaw, Rt Hon William


McCusker, H.
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)
Wiggin, Jerry


Macfarlane, Neil
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)
Wigley, Dafydd


MacGregor, John
Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)
Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)


Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)
Winterton, Nicholas


McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)
Ross, William (Londonderry)
Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton)


McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)
Younger, Hon George


Madel, David
Rost, Peter (SE Derbyshire)



Marshall, Michael (Arundel)
Royle, Sir Anthony
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Marten, Neil
Sainsbury, Tim
Mr. Spencer Le Marchant and Mr. Cecil Parkinson.


Mates, Michael
St. John-Stevas, Norman



Mather, Carol
Scott, Nicholas

Question accordingly agreed to.

Resolved,
That, in view of the serious consequences to the industries concerned and for those

employed in them of further delay and uncertainty, in relation to the proceedings on the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill, any Standing Orders relating to Private Business, and consideration of the application of any such Standing Orders, are dispensed with.

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. John Ellis.]

Grave disorder having arisen in the House, Mr. SPEAKER, pursuant to Standing Order No. 26 (Power of Mr, Speaker to adjourn House or suspend sitting), suspended the sitting for 20 minutes.

Sitting suspended at 10.34 p.m.

10.54 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: resumed the Chair.

Mr. Speaker: Order. There have been scenes of grave disorder here tonight. I adjourn the House, without Question put, until tomorrow.

Adjourned at six minutes to Eleven o'clock without Question put.